Legal Question in Personal Injury in Virginia

You will need to have the car title in order to register the vehicle

with DMV. You should bring proof of ownership(bill of sale or other receipt) for the vehicle to your scheduled court hearing and as part of your

plea bargain to settle the matter, that the police officer return the title

to you that was confiscated.

Are you saying that the "emissions" was expired or the car was not validly registered at all (expired plates)?

If you are being charged with holding an "open title" then the title itself would be evidence that the police officer wants to take as evidence of that charge. If the police officer let you keep it, you could change it before the case comes up in court.

Can you tell me what statute number is listed on the ticket that you got? This will tell us exactly what you are being charged with (hopefully).

However, I would imagine that you will need the title -- signed by the seller -- to register the car in your name. So this is a problem.

Normally, if you have a registration or license problem, you should go and gert it taken care of. When you then show the judge that the problem is resolved, the judge will often dismiss the case upon proof that you have fixed the problem. But that is going to be difficult if you don't have the title.

I believe that you need to immediately get every bit of evidence you can that the you bought the car. Can you get a cancelled check? Did you get a receipt? Can you get a receipt now?

Did anyone go with you when you talked to the seller who can be a witness? Get them to write a statement and sign it, preferably before a Notary Pbulic.

Try to get a statement from the seller, in wiriting. The problem will be that when you start talking about court charges, the seller may get frightened and stop talking and might LIE about you.

The greatest danger will be if the seller starts telling lies about you, and whether you legally bought the car.

You need to protect yourself against the risk that the seller will turn on you and try to blame you.

You should find or obtain from teh seller documentation that you bought the car from the person or dealer, to protect yourself.

Maybe the seller can get a replacement title, so that he can sign it over to you and you can register the car in your name.

Maybe you can go to DMV together and get a propert transfer of title taken care of if you both ask together.

As for the car, I think that the police do hae the authority to impound the car, because it is not lawfully registered. So it cannot be legally driven on the roads. So they can take the car because it cannot be legally driven.

You need to get it registered.