I am selling a 1966 Volvo P1800. It runs well, has been restored, and looks good. However. the Illinois title for the car, which was issued to a deceased relative in 2002, does not conform to any of Volvo International's VIN # series. We do have in selling the car. We do have the correct VIN # from the car. This creates a problem in selling the car. Does anyone know of an "easy" way to obtain a clean title? Thanks.

 

Illinois probably has several processes for straightening this out. In my state, I find that the people working at the office are reluctant to use any of these procedures, so it seems like they don't actually have procedures, but they do. What you need fundamentally is an affidavit title, where everybody including the state agrees that you do own this car and that there's no need to modify the VIN but rather just issue a correct title. The state will delegate their part of it to a state trooper or maybe to the dealer, considering Volvo is still in business. I know that's not a very good explanation.

What people do in practice is usually two processes:
1. they will pretend the car is abandoned and go before the judge and make certain accommodations required by the state, and then the state will issue a title to the person who is dealing with the abandoned car.
2. They will have the car titled in a state where it's really easy to get a title, and then transfer it back. There are services to do this, and some states fight back against it.

Your question has 100% to do with Illinois and nothing to do with Volvos, but I don't know where on the internet you can go to get really really good Illinois motor vehicle advice.

 

Here's an example of something that might apply:
https://www.ilsos.gov/publications/p...ons/vsd895.pdf