- Titling
- Current Status: Nothing new to share from the car side of things since I’m in Michigan and the car is in Georgia, but I have made some progress towards getting the car registered. The Georgia department of revenue approved my title paperwork! It would appear my technique of sending them every possible paper of documentation I had worked. This has been quite the process and I’m super thankful for a previous 818 builder that wrote out the whole process. Because nobody I talked to at any point of this, from the inspector to the DOR, had any idea how to title a kit car and in most cases gave misinformation if anything at all. They mailed me the letter stating that I need to pay my ad valorem tax by June 10th as well as a T22 form for me to get signed by a police officer to prove I attached the VIN plate they also sent. I’ve now mailed in my ad valorem tax payment and I am currently working out a plan to get the vin plate on and the T22 signed. I may travel back to Georgia for a weekend soon to handle all this and spend a bit of time continuing work on the car with hopes that I can somehow get it to Michigan at a later point in the Summer.
- Insurance: Insurance has been quite a challenge, but I think I’ve finally found a place that will comprehensively insure a kit car for a 22 year old. American Modern, which is a fairly big name in classic car insurance, appears to be willing to write me a plan. Hopefully the pricing comes out reasonable but I’ll know for sure later this week.
- Some fun details: The documentation I received from the DOR was the least official “official” paperwork I’ve ever received. It was clearly handwritten with typos, had several mistakes hand scratched out and corrected with pen, and the tax breakdown appeared to be a screenshot of a website page with no explanation of the amounts. The DOR for some reason had a $2100 (!!!!) dealer penalty applied to my ad valorem tax in the letter they sent me. I was quite alarmed by this but on further research I found it in no way applies to me because I’m not a dealer and, even if I was, unassembled kit cars do not have to be titled within 30 days (obviously due to build time). So I called the DOR, who agreed it was a mistake but said they couldn’t change it and I would need to call my county office. So I called my county office, who said they didn’t create this fee so I should talk to the state DOR to correct this. Called the state DOR one more time and they had no idea how to change it, how it was created, or who created the charge. But it gets better…then I get a callback from my county office who checked on the penalty charge for me and they said that their system does not even show that they are supposed to collect a penalty at all. They only see the 7% ad valorem tax in their system as it should be. So in summary, I have this mysterious tax penalty that someone created, that mysteriously disappeared, and nobody knows anything about. So the current plan is to continue as if the penalty never existed. Government efficiency!
Woohoo I have an official VIN!
