My 17 year old stepson purchased a car earlier this year through a private sale. As stated on the bill of sale, signed by both parties, the price was $500 with $250 paid that day and the remaining $250 to be paid upon receipt of the title. My stepson took possession of the vehicle that day and has retained possession ever since. Meanwhile, the seller has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. No title has been provided, therefore the remaining balance has never been paid. My stepson is more than willing to uphold his end of the deal, but without any title and no luck attempting to contact the seller, he is stuck. The vehicle has been sitting in his mother's driveway for months now, it cannot be driven because it cannot be registered. He had tried to be proactive but we don't know how to proceed. We live in Idaho, but the seller is from Oregon. He did contact the Oregon DMV at one point and from the VIN was able to find out there were no liens attached to the vehicle. We don't understand why he would be so shady about not providing the title.

Obviously, this is the exact reason 17 year olds should not attempt to buy cars on their own, and why the title should be provided at the time of the sale, but those mistakes have already been made and I've promised his father I would try to help clean up the mess. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Do you know where the guy lives?
Did the DMV tell you the name of who the car belongs to?

Have you tried taking the bill of sale to the Idaho DMV and see if it can be registered based on that? If a VIN trace shows the last owner was the person who signed the bill of sale and that the car hasn't been reported stolen and no liens against it, then they should allow it to be registered.

My suspicion, however, is that it was stolen.

So I found out some information today that was extremely helpful. My stepson didn't tell me the seller left his registration in the vehicle! The Oregon DMV couldn't give out the contact information of the last registered owner to my stepson, but now we know we have it. I called the DMV myself today and was advised to send a certified letter to the seller at that address explaining the situation and asking to be contacted. If the letter comes back refused, we can take the unopened letter with the proof of refusal and the bill of sale to the DMV and since there are no liens or reports attached to the vehicle, they will issue us a new title. If the letter is accepted, the owner has 30 days to contact us or take some sort of action. If no contact is made we can take the proof of delivery from the certified letter and the bill of sale and they will issue the title to us. Then there's the third possibility of actually being contacted by the owner and resolving the issue amongst ourselves. Any of these possibilities gets us closer to resolving our issue. Thank you to those who've offered advice, I really appreciate it and will be sure to post our progress!

Yeah make sure to send the letter registered.
Sounds like maybe it might turn out good for your son.
Keep us up on what happens.

I'm assuming here, that the name on the registration is the same as on the Bill of Sale.

There is still the possibility that the car was stolen and that the seller just signed the owner's name.

Keep us posted.