Lesson #4 – Titles, autos and homes. When I got married I didn’t have anything in my name. I also didn’t really care and loved the idea of things like cars and houses listed in both our names. We were young and building our credit. It wasn’t until I didn’t want a car in both our names that it was a problem. Not the fact that both our names were listed, but HOW it was listed. If a dealer or title company ever explained this matter, I must have missed it or likely didn’t care at the time or perceived it to be irrelevant. But as I’ve learned, there may be a time it is very relevant. So ladies, when buying a car or house (or anything with a title) make sure if both your names are on it, it is listed as “or” and not “and”. The reason why this is so important is because if you go to sell your car, for example, and it’s listed as “and”, you have to have the other person sign off on it. You cannot do business alone (or at least in my experience, I was unable to). You can contact the loan company and request a title change but the paperwork could take a couple of months to complete if they will even work with you and you still have to have the other person sign the title. That is a possibility and what I ended up doing. This may seem irrelevant or minor but if you are ever in a situation that you need to be able to make decisions on your own, you want the property listed as “or” to make more swift changes.
This was never a thought to me until I ended up with an 11 year old car from a divorce and needed to trade it in for a new one. The frustration and delay could have put me in a situation without an automobile. I am thankful it all worked out but it would have been much easier if the title listed one word differently.
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