West Virginia sells a car on the back of the certificate and then checks your arithmetic. The buyer's tax is worked out against a valuation book, a cheap sale needs a notarised bill of sale to be believed, and the plates never belonged to the car at all - the Code makes keeping them your duty. Here is each piece, from the Division's own pages. Here is the whole thing, taken from the West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles' own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out a West Virginia titleThe private sale lives on the BACK of a West Virginia certificate - the assignment section, with the odometer certification printed inside it.Open the walkthrough →The form that spells it out is one almost nobody files. DMV-TM-1 prints the whole rule in its second paragraph: no disclosure is needed where the vehicle model year is 2010 or before, where it is non-motorized, or where its gross vehicle weight exceeds 16,000 pounds - and vehicle model years 2011 and after require an odometer reading for 20 years. A 2011 car keeps disclosing until 2031, however tired it is; a 2010 car never has to again.
The reading itself goes on the certificate. The Division's titles page says the exact mileage must be recorded in the assignment section of the title by the seller, and every West Virginia certificate issued after January 1, 1991 carries that certification on its back - DMV-TM-1 exists only for the title whose format lacks the section. The status boxes the page names are Actual Mileage, Not Actual Mileage, or Mileage Exceeds Mechanical Limits, and the second of those brands the record.
Model year 2010 or before: No disclosure required. Leave nothing dishonest, but no reading is demanded and no box need be ticked - DMV-TM-1's own instructions say you do not need the document.
Model year 2011 or newer, within 20 years of manufacture: Whole miles into the assignment section of the certificate, marked Actual Mileage unless one of the two exceptions is genuinely true.
Over 16,000 lbs gross vehicle weight, or non-motorized: Exempt on the form's own list, and the titles page's class table says the same thing by registration class - travel trailers, cargo trailers and heavy trucks are on the exempt side.
You, the seller: Sign the assignment on the back of the certificate, enter the buyer's name and address, the date of sale, the price, and the exact mileage. If two owners are printed on the face joined by AND, the Division's rule is that both owners must sign the title documents for a sale or transfer to be legally binding; joined by OR, either owner can sign the title document independently.
The buyer: The buyer signs the back as well - the titles page's instruction for a used vehicle is that both the seller and buyer must sign the back of a West Virginia title - and then takes the certificate, the DMV-1-TR application and the money for tax and fees to a DMV Regional Office or posts the packet to Charleston.
Where the oath actually lives in a West Virginia sale. The Code puts one into the transfer itself: 17A-4-2 requires the assignment and warranty of title to carry a statement of all liens and encumbrances, which statement shall be verified under oath by the owner. What the Division's current pages demand a notary for, by name, is the paperwork around the certificate - the DMV-7-TR is titled Bill of Sale for a Motor Vehicle, Trailer, or Boat (NOTARY IS REQUIRED), and a sale priced below half the valuation book only escapes book-value tax with a notarized bill of sale signed by both parties.
The gift affidavit, the correction affidavit, the legal heir affidavit and the lien-discharge section of the duplicate-title form all carry their own notary blocks too. Read what your own certificate prints beside its signature line and satisfy it exactly - the DMV's correction form lists Notary Public signed their name in wrong place among the mistakes it exists to fix, which tells you how often the oath is taken in the wrong order.
Do not mark out, white out or erase - the Division's own dealer-seminar instruction is that this will void the title, and a duplicate title will be required. The affidavit of correction exists for a narrow list of mistakes, several of which need their own notarised evidence, and an altered price is treated as worse than a mistake: the titles page warns that titles submitted with an altered or conflicting purchase price accompanied by a secondary bill of sale will be rejected, with the original owner sent off to apply for a duplicate and start again.
West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
The assignment happens on the certificate; these are the forms that surround it - the application the buyer files, the sworn bill of sale that protects a low price, the gift affidavit, the odometer sheet for old-format titles, and the notice that gets the car off your record.
Paying off the loan is half the job in West Virginia - the state's own record stays encumbered until a clear title issues, and a private lender on a title needs paper of its own.
Lost, defaced or never received, before the sale or embarrassingly after it - the Division has a separate affidavit for each, and a checklist for the title that was already marked SOLD.
One page appoints an agent to sign the certificate for you, and unusually for this state it asks for no notary of its own.
When no will was left and no administrator appointed, the heirs swear one affidavit, attach the death certificate, and sign for the owner the title still names.
A flood, fire or wreck turns the certificate into a salvage application with a damage checklist and a fee that depends on which box you tick.
The plate is yours to move, surrender or account for - and because the insurance computer polices it, this is the part of a West Virginia sale that bites when it is skipped.
Section 17A-4-1 says the registration expires the moment you transfer the title, and that it shall be the duty of the original owner to retain the registration plates issued therefor and to immediately notify the commissioner of such transfer. The buyer drives away on your plate only in one narrow statutory window: ten days, and only carrying your written consent to use the registration.
Then the plate either moves to another vehicle you own or goes back. The transfer route is the DMV-44-A-TR with its $10.50 fee, and both vehicles must be titled and registered in the same owner's name. The statute also lets you surrender a set of plates and exchange them toward a different class of vehicle.
The buyer is not left on foot: the application for title doubles as the registration application, so plates issue in the same transaction at a Regional Office, and the fee brochure prices an ordinary Class A passenger registration at $51.50 a year.
What you must not do is drop the plate in a drawer on a vehicle whose insurance you then cancel. The Division's insurance page says it plainly: if the insurance is dropped for any reason, the plate is supposed to be returned, and failure to return the plate or otherwise bring the registration back into compliance with the law can lead to suspension of your driving privileges. A plate that is lost or stolen, and so cannot be surrendered, gets the WV-4S statement instead.
The form is the DMV-1-S, Sold Vehicle or Watercraft Notice, and the statutory clock is a single word: 17A-4-1 makes it the seller's duty to immediately notify the commissioner of the transfer. No day count appears anywhere in the section or on the form. The notice wants both halves of the sale - your details, the buyer's name and address (list UNKNOWN if you genuinely never learned it), the vehicle, the date and the price - and it warns that it will not be accepted if any lines are left blank.
Look at the address it posts to and the reason becomes obvious: DMV Insurance, PO Box 17020, Charleston. West Virginia verifies insurance electronically against every active title and active plate, and its selection criterion is simply an active title and active plate on a non-commercial vehicle. A car you sold but never reported keeps your name on an active record, and when the buyer's coverage does not show up against that record, the letters come to you. Filing the notice is what takes the record out of the sweep.
Report the sale and return or transfer the plate before the policy comes off.
The DMV's random verification runs monthly, in the thousands, and its page explains what happens to a registered vehicle that stops confirming: a first letter with thirty days to resolve it, a certified notice with thirty more, and then suspension. Undocumented changes in ownership sit on the page's own list of common reasons a check fails. Sell the car, send the DMV-1-S, deal with the plate - and only then cancel the insurance. West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles, registration cancellation.
W. Va. Code 17A-4-1, transfer, surrender or retention of plates
Register at any DMV Regional Office, by post to Charleston, or through an authorized private license service - the titles page says vehicles without active liens may be titled and registered seamlessly by mail, in person, or through those services before driving the car on their own account - the ten days the Code allows on your registration, 17A-3-1, work only with your written consent riding in the glovebox. West Virginia charges a 6% titling sales tax when the buyer titles the car, with a floor and a check built in: a net price under $500 pays a flat $30.00 instead, and a private price below 50% of the current NADA Clean Loan Book value is only believed with a notarized bill of sale signed by both parties - otherwise tax will automatically be assessed on the full NADA Clean Loan Book value. A car two years old or newer is taxed on book value regardless of what changed hands. The certificate itself costs $15.00, a recorded lien adds $10.00, and a plate transferred from the buyer's old car adds $10.50 - the fee table printed on the application's own reverse.
What they need to bring:
West Virginia requires a routine safety inspection every 24 months, done at stations licensed by the West Virginia State Police, with the sticker inside the windshield. Nothing in the transfer paperwork asks the seller to renew it - but the clock lands on the buyer fast, and a seller who can show a current sticker is answering the first question most buyers ask.
Stations and programme questions belong to the West Virginia State Police Motor Vehicle Safety Program, because the DMV licenses neither the garages nor the stickers. WV DMV, Registrations - WV State Vehicle Inspections.
West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles · figures and rules as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in West Virginia and the rest of the guides.