Day: November 30, 2010

Vehicle Title and Registration

Now that we live in Washington, we’re dutifully trying to fulfil our legal obligation as residents. This includes registering our Fusion with the state. We have, however, a problem.

Flash back 3.5 years to when we moved to Colorado. When we moved Benjamin wasn’t working and hadn’t started school, so he was tasked with getting us situated. He was the one that did the research on what was required in CO to register the vehicle, gathering the documents required, and getting it done. At this time we were still paying on the loan on the car and thus the loan company had a lien on the vehicle. Everything went swimmingly.

Flash forward two years when we paid off the vehicle. The loan company sent us our title — a Texas title. This did not seem odd to me at all. Title != registration, right?

That brings us up to today when we’re trying to register the car in WA. According to the online docs, we have to bring in our title, other paperwork, and money and they issue us a WA state title for the vehicle. Umm… we have a TX title but I really think we’re suppose to have a CO title. Sure enough, according to the Denver website (registration is handled by the counties in Coloardo) “if there is a lien, the title will be mailed to the lienholder”. So I call the loan company (our credit union in Austin) and they don’t have any record of a CO title.

So I’m flummoxed. I think I’m suppose to have a CO title, not a TX title. I have what appears to be a perfectly valid TX title and, in theory, can use this to register the car in WA (what do they care about my little CO problem?). What I’m worried about is that this might create some confusion if we ever go to sell the vehicle.

So I guess from here I’ll call the Denver motor vehicle office and see if there was, in fact, a CO title issued for the vehicle. If there was, then I’ll figure out what hoops I have to jump through to get a new one issued and decide if all that effort is worth the perceived benefit.

From my CO/WA experience it appears that a vehicle’s registration and title are more closely linked that I thought.

DING! again

A month ago I mentioned about our first success with teaching Riley to ring a bell when he needs to go outside. Then we turned his (and our) world upside down in the move to Seattle.

This weekend, Riley started consistently ringing the bell every time he needs to go outside. He usually starts by whining at the door needing to go out at which point we watch him but don’t jump to the door. Then he looks at the bell, looks at us, looks at the bell, and then walks over and tries to hit it. I’d say 90% of the time he’s successful and is able to hit the bell right away. The other 10% he paws at it and misses the ringer. Either way it’s obvious what he’s trying to achieve. We reward him hitting the ringer by immediately dropping what we’re doing and taking him outside. If he doesn’t hit the ringer (or resorts to whining at the door) we usually take our time on letting him outside.

Thankfully, he’s used the bathroom every time he’s rang the bell and we’ve taken him outside. I’m a little worried that he’ll figure out that just ringing the bell will get him outside, bathroom break or not. I’m hoping that our bright puppy isn’t quite that bright!