Having never done this before, here is a dumb question. I’m getting ready to sell one of my canoes and I need to know what forms I need to sell it and what I need to do with them. I’m thinking title and registration but what do I do with these to make the transfer of ownership? See I told you this was a dumb question.
Check the webpage for your state’s
boat regulators. Here it’s the Wildlfe Resources Commission. they have pretty thorough explanations on transferring ownership.
Here a canoe or a kayak has no registration or certificate of title, so it’s all done by transfer of possession, or bill of sale.
I have bought used boats, sold used …
boats and given boats away, and no one has ever asked me for a bill of sale, and I have never given one.
If they did I would scratch something on a piece of scrap paper, and it would either be a done deal or no deal.
It seems a shame that we can’t trust our neighbors and our neighbors can’t trust us.
On a new boat the only reason I want a bill of sale is for a record of the identification number.
cheers,
JackL
If your state issues titles as Illinois
and some other states do, just flip the title over and fill in the transfer info on the lines provided, same as the transfer/sale of an auto or motorcycle. Otherwise I’ve always just printed out a bill-of-sale and given it to the buyer, and would always recommend requiring any seller I was buying from to do the same, and go one step further to demand a drivers license, and write his/her info down, in case it was later proven to be a stolen boat.
In Texas,for canoes, kayaks, and such
its a handshake. A bill of sale is nice, but just a formality. If you go with a bill of sale, put the serial number on the document. Not needed, but its nice for the buyer to have that.
Every state is different
Here in Minnesota we have to register the canoe. I have always given the Certificate of Origin (from the manufacturer), registration card, and bill of sale. I sold a canoe to a guy from Iowa and I had to go to our Motor Vehicle Department to get something else for him that he needed to license it in Iowa. I think a title. Whatever it was cost me $10.