How to fill out Wyoming MV-141

Read the three letters carefully, because Wyoming uses them twice. This TOD is a Transitional Ownership Document, and it has nothing whatever to do with transfer on death - that is the MV-308, filed at the same counter. This one is a lender's placeholder. When somebody borrows to buy a vehicle and the paper title is not in the room, the lender delivers this instead of the certificate so the security interest is perfected on the day of the sale rather than weeks later when the title finally turns up. Its own opening line puts a fence round it: for use solely in perfecting security interests, and not a negotiable document or evidence of ownership or right to title. You will meet it if the person buying your vehicle is financing it and your certificate is still sitting with the bank you are paying off.

Written against MV-141 (05/2022), issued under WYDOT Motor Vehicle Services, prescribed under W.S. 31-2-801(g) and filed with the county clerk of the county where the vehicle is located. The sentence that matters to a seller is the one the submitter signs: the title is not in my possession and is not available for submission to the county clerk. Nine times out of ten the reason it is not available is that it is still with your lender, waiting for your payoff to clear. That makes the ninety-day clock your problem as much as the buyer's bank's, because it is your payoff that releases the certificate. Get the payoff figure and the expected release date in writing before you agree a date to hand over the keys.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank MV-141 from the dot.state.wy.us copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our MV-141 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

   Recognise which TOD you are looking at

   The heading reads Transitional Ownership Document, and the paragraph under it talks about perfecting security interests. If the heading instead mentions a beneficiary and a death, you have the MV-308.

   Watch out: The quickest tell is whose name goes in the second row. A lender's name on a form means a lien; a relative's name means an inheritance.

2. 2
   Somebody else fills this in

   The vehicle row

   Make, year and the vehicle identification number, typed or clearly printed as the instructions require.

   Watch out: Read this row against your certificate before the buyer's bank sends it. A transposed character here indexes the lien against no vehicle at all, and the mess lands back on the last person whose name was on the title.

3. 3
   Somebody else fills this in

   The institution row

   The dealership or financial institution claiming the interest, and its dealer licence number where it has one.

   Watch out: If this row names a person rather than a business, something is wrong. A private buyer cannot file a transitional ownership document to secure their own purchase.

4. 4
   Somebody else fills this in

   The owner or debtor row

   The borrower's names and address - the buyer's, on a private sale.

   Watch out: Check that it is not your name. You are the person the vehicle is coming from, and this document records who is taking a loan against it going forward.

5. 5
   Somebody else fills this in

   The certification, printed name and signature

   Signed by a named authorised individual at the lender, dated, with no notary and no owner involvement.

   Watch out: Ask for a copy anyway. It carries the date the clock started, and if your payoff is what is holding the certificate up, that date is the one you want on your own record.

6. 6
   You fill this in

   Then watch the certificate travel

   The lender has a fixed window to get the actual certificate of title to the same county clerk, with a duplicate of this form and a completed title application.

   Watch out: Your part of that chain is your payoff. Ring your lender the day after the sale and ask when the title goes out and to whom - a title posted to the wrong county clerk is the usual reason one of these expires.

What gets this one rejected

• •Believing it transfers anything. The form says in its own second sentence that it is not evidence of ownership or right to title. A buyer who waves one of these at you as proof they now own the vehicle has misread their own bank's paperwork.
• •Sending it to Cheyenne. This is a county clerk document, and specifically the clerk of the county where the vehicle is located - which after your sale is the buyer's county, not yours.
• •Filing it without the security agreement and the fee. The heading warns in capitals that incomplete forms or forms without sufficient fees and attachments will be rejected by the county clerk, and a rejected filing is an unperfected lien.
• •Assuming the placeholder is permanent. The certificate has to reach the clerk inside the window the form prints, and if it does not, the document is invalid, without force and effect - the lender's security interest evaporates and somebody starts telephoning the seller.
• •Confusing it with the MV-308. Both are called TOD forms in conversation at a Wyoming counter. One perfects a bank's lien this week; the other decides who inherits the vehicle. Ask which one is on the desk.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

• •Wyoming perfects a lien on the certificate itself. W.S. 31-2-801(a) perfects a security interest when the financing statement or security agreement and a completed title application with the valid title of record are delivered to the county clerk, who then endorses the lien onto the certificate with the month, day and year of delivery. There is no separate lien card in this state, which is why a Wyoming title's front carries a printed lien table.
• •Which is exactly why this form exists. Subsection (g) covers the case where the certificate is not available on the day, and lets a transitional ownership document stand in its place. The statute is explicit that no endorsement on the transitional ownership document is required to perfect the security interest - receipt by the clerk is what does it.
• •Ninety days, then it dies. The statute gives ninety days from the date of the financing statement or security agreement for the certificate of title to be filed. The form restates the same window from the date of sale or the date of the agreement, and adds what happens if it slips: the document is invalid.
• •Two fees, and they are not the same fee. The filing that goes in with this form carries one non-refundable amount under the county fee statute. When the certificate follows, a further payment covers the filing plus the Wyoming certificate of title itself - the form breaks its own total into those two parts on its face.
• •Your release is separate, and it is an endorsement. If it is your lender holding your title, what you need is the termination under W.S. 31-2-801(d): the financing statement is terminated, you take the certificate to the clerk in whose office it was filed, and the clerk endorses the termination on the face of the title. WYDOT publishes no form for it, because the endorsement is the form.

Every line here was read off MV-141 (05/2022) 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.

Back to all Wyoming seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Wyoming involves.