Vehicle Owner Check
Generally, there are two situations when you may want to do vehicle owner check. The first one is buying a used vehicle from the seller that you find suspicious for some reason. Second is being disturbed by a certain vehicle in such a way that you really need...
Vehicle Owner Check When Buying a Used Vehicle
Without a doubt, you want to know as much as possible about the owner of the vehicle you want to purchase. Not just the current owner but all the previous owners. It's not a secret that stolen or other problem vehicles may change many owners in many states, both individuals and dealerships in order to cover the dirty tracks on the way to the poor unknowing purchaser.
Knowing previous owners in the UK is not a big problem if you have a copy of the Vehicles Registration Certificate - previous owners are listed there. However, in the US its a trick: every new registered owner receives a new title, which not just conceals the information about previous owners but often even does not recognize salvage title issues in another state, which puts you at risk of buying a junk car - unless you check VIN history against the vehicle history report database. The DMV have all the information about the current and previous owners and addresses. However, the information is not disclosed to anyone who requests it, unless the applicant is a specific governmental service like police or court or a business that needs the owners's name and address to perform it's main functions (like finding the owner of a towed car). For a private person, it's really difficult to access this information through the DMV, unless one is able to provide really strong good reasons for such a request and prove that the information won't be used for illegal purposes. Doing that through the police is easier - if you have real, well-founded concerns about the vehicle's owners.
What can actually help you is the vehicle history report. It won't include any names or addresses (in compliance with the Drivers Privacy Protection Act). However, the report will give you all the most critical information you need to make your purchasing decision, such as [salvage title]salvage title issued is any state, theft or odometer tampering history, accidents, severe damage and more. As to ownership, the report will tell you how many owners the vehicle had, for how long, states and the cities they were registered in and even specific uses of the vehicles (taxi, police, rental and other). If the report does not have theft or salvage title records, there is most likely nothing to worry about. The history of registration records will also imply what weather conditions was the vehicle used in, if in could be damaged in natural disasters, etc. What you need is to be able to read and interpret the vehicle history report.
If you want to check a boat owner by HIN that's possible to do with your the local DMV because boat owner names are considered public records. And, just like with cars, you can get run a boat VIN history check because the number of hidden problems in boats resulting form addidents, wear and poor maintenance is not smaller than with cars but boats are more expensive.
When vehicle owner check makes sense?
There are other situations when you may need vehicle owner check, such as:
- a suspicious vehicle regularly parks near your house
- you suspect someone is waylaying you or breaches your privacy
- A person driving a certain vehicle threatens you
- someone parks his or her car on you land
- you witnessed an accident and the initiator escaped but you remembered the vehicle registration number
- you need to file insurance claim on that vehicle
These situations are easier to resolve if you inform the police about your concerns. Police can easily access the records closed for private persons. In addition, in this manner you'll have additional protection in case of any incidents.
