Buy a Used Car in a Private Sale? Title It Within 30 Days

You buy a truck off a neighbor in Pottsboro, hand over the cash, get the keys and a signed title, and drive off. In Texas that handshake doesn't finish the deal. You have 30 days from the date of sale to put the title in your own name, and the place to do it is the Grayson County Tax Office at 100 W. Houston St. in Sherman, with a branch up in Denison at 101 W. Woodard. Bring the signed title, a filled-out Form 130-U with the real sale price on it, proof of insurance, and your ID. Miss the 30 days and you start racking up late-transfer penalties on top of the sales tax.

If you're the one selling, cover yourself the same day money changes hands by filing a Vehicle Transfer Notification online. Until the buyer gets around to retitling, that car is still legally tied to your name, which means their parking tickets, toll runs, and worse can land in your mailbox. The notification flips the record to 'sold' and gets you off the hook for what happens after the keys leave your hand.

Keep a copy of the bill of sale and the odometer reading with your records either way. If something's off with the paperwork, like a missing title or a name that doesn't match, the Sherman tax office is the desk that untangles it, not a DPS counter.