How to fill out Wyoming 020-021

A Wyoming certificate of title is secure stock issued over a county clerk's signature and seal, so there is nothing to reprint at home and nothing to download when yours has gone. What the statute asks for instead is an affidavit describing the loss, filed with the clerk who issued the original - and because it is a county affidavit rather than a state application, the sheet you fill in is your county's own. This is the Laramie County Clerk's, and every Wyoming version does the same four things: identifies the title, swears to what became of it, says where to post the replacement, and gives any lienholder a place to consent to their lien being carried across. The replacement is not a clean sheet: the statute makes the clerk print, in capitals on the face, that it is a duplicate and may be subject to the rights of a person or persons under the original certificate.

Written against 020-021 (R4/2023), issued under Laramie County Clerk, Cheyenne, on the affidavit W.S. 31-2-105(a) requires; the $15.00 fee is set by W.S. 31-3-102(a)(vii). The line about the previous title being null and void is doing real work, and it is the reason a duplicate is worth taking seriously rather than treating as a reprint. From the moment the duplicate issues, the certificate in the drawer you finally found last week is waste paper - and if you sell on the strength of it, your buyer will be turned away at the counter. Post the old one back to the clerk, or destroy it, and never sign an assignment on both.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank 020-021 from the laramiecountywy.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our 020-021 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.

Every line, in the order you meet it

1. 1
   You fill this in

   Find out which county issued it

   Wyoming title numbers open with the county's own prefix number, and the same number opens your plate. Three is Sheridan, two is Laramie, one is Natrona.

   Watch out: If you cannot find a title number anywhere, look at the upper right corner of the vehicle registration - the county prints it there, which is the whole reason this form footnotes it.

2. 2
   You fill this in

   Fill in the vehicle row

   Title number, identification number, make and year, copied off the registration rather than off memory.

   Watch out: The clerk matches all four against the county record. A make written as the trim name on the tailgate rather than the manufacturer is the commonest reason a match fails.

3. 3
   You fill this in

   Tick what happened to it

   Lost, mutilated or destroyed - one of the three, and it is the sworn part of the affidavit.

   Watch out: Mutilated wants the remains handed in with the application. If you are holding a torn or water-damaged certificate, bring it; the clerk would rather take it off you than wonder where it is.

4. 4
   You fill this in

   Say where the replacement goes

   The name and postal address for the duplicate, which need not be the owner's if a lender or an agent is receiving it.

   Watch out: A post office box is fine here and safer than a rural route. The county's own footer says plainly that it is not responsible for titles lost in the post.

5. 5
   Somebody else fills this in

   Get the lienholder to consent, if there is one

   A representative of the financial institution signs, and the institution is named beside the signature - or supplies a letter on its own letterhead instead.

   Watch out: Ask for the letter. A lender's title department will produce one faster than it will get an officer to a Wyoming counter, and the clerk accepts either.

6. 6
   You fill this in

   Sign it in front of the officer

   Both applicant lines are used where two people are applying, and the acknowledgement underneath is completed by a notary public or a deputy clerk.

   Watch out: Doing this at the clerk's own counter collapses two errands into one: the deputy takes the acknowledgement, takes the fee, and starts the duplicate the same morning.

What gets this one rejected

• •Filing it in the county you live in now. The statute sends the application to the county clerk issuing the original title, so a Sheridan title does not become a Laramie problem because you have moved to Cheyenne. Ring the issuing county first.
• •Ticking lost when the title is in somebody else's hands. The form makes you swear it is not in the possession of any other person, and a buyer holding an unfinished title is very much another person - that is a different problem with a different answer.
• •Leaving the lienholder block empty when the front of the old certificate carries a lender. Without their signature or their letter, the clerk either carries the lien forward blind or stops - and neither gets you a title you can sell on.
• •Signing at the kitchen table. Every county's version is notarised, and this one puts the acknowledgement directly under your signature. The clerk's own counter will witness it while you wait.
• •Treating the duplicate as a fresh start. The replacement carries a printed warning that it may be subject to the rights of somebody holding the original, so a buyer who is being careful will ask why there is a duplicate at all. Have the answer ready.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

• •Any one owner may apply. W.S. 31-2-105(a) defines owner for this purpose as any one person listed as owner on the face of the title - so a duplicate does not need every co-owner, even where a sale would. The signature that needs all of them comes later, on the assignment.
• •The fee is the same as a first title. Fifteen dollars, made payable to the county clerk rather than to the state, and payable again if the duplicate is lost in its turn.
• •It is the same felony warning as the certificate. The warning across the head of this sheet is the one printed on the title itself - falsifying titling documents is a felony, with a fine of not more than $5000 and up to two years.
• •Not every county publishes the same sheet. Park County posts a mail-in affidavit that wants every owner's signature before a notary. WYDOT publishes none at all: the whole MV series was checked form by form, and there is no departmental duplicate-title application in it.
• •If the title number has gone too, start with the record. The county needs a title number to find the record. Where nobody has one, the department's own record search will produce the owner of record, the title number and any liens on file before this affidavit can be completed.

Every line here was read off 020-021 (R4/2023) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Wyoming Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Services pages. This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ, theirs governs.

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