didn't export car when leaving Canada, can't get title back

[couture]

I'm going to put my issue into bullet points:

- My wife and I imported our car from the US into Canada (BC) in 2018, we surrendered the title to Canada.
- We moved back to the US in late 2021, but didn't export our vehicle from Canada or import it back to the US (dumb in hindsight). We thought that we'd be able to get a new title with our lien release letter. Unfortunately we couldn't gain access to the letter for a year.
- South Carolina won't let us register our vehicle here without our title, so we sent our lien letter to New Jersey (where it was originally purchased) to request a new title copy. After multiple months processing, NJ informed us that BC has a stop on our title release.

How screwed are we with this? We've already been driving on expired BC plates for almost a year and a half in the US which is bad enough, and we keep running into issues. Driving the car back to BC to deal with this isn't an option. Are there any steps we can take here?

Thanks

 

[Ponga]

I'm going to put my issue into bullet points:

- My wife and I imported our car from the US into Canada (BC) in 2018, we surrendered the title to Canada.
- We moved back to the US in late 2021, but didn't export our vehicle from Canada or import it back to the US (dumb in hindsight). We thought that we'd be able to get a new title with our lien release letter. Unfortunately we couldn't gain access to the letter for a year.
- South Carolina won't let us register our vehicle here without our title, so we sent our lien letter to New Jersey (where it was originally purchased) to request a new title copy. After multiple months processing, NJ informed us that BC has a stop on our title release.

How screwed are we with this? We've already been driving on expired BC plates for almost a year and a half in the US which is bad enough, and we keep running into issues. Driving the car back to BC to deal with this isn't an option. Are there any steps we can take here?

Thanks

Have you already gone through the CBP, CBSA and (possibly) ICBC `hoops' to find out?

Probably not much help, but see this:
https://www.snowbirdadvisor.ca/how-permanently-import-your-car-us-canada

And more, likely redundant info that you already found:
https://www.dirtlegal.com/blog/6-steps-to-import-a-vehicle-from-canada-to-the-us-by-yourself


Good luck!

 

[Ponga]

No idea why your post crept into my head at ~ 3 AM this morning, but...it did.

I thought "Hey...the guy should just sell his car to a friend/family member in BC (since there's no discrepancy as to who the lawful owner is); transfer the title to the `new' owner, who then sells the car back to the [real] owner and transfers the title. Just like a person buying a car from eBay. Voila'!

Except...that's a stupid idea for more than one reason! LOL!

I do think that no matter what, you will ultimately need to drive to the nearest land PoE to have the car inspected before you will eventually be able to complete the painful process of importing your car back into the U.S., which is beyond insane!

Good luck!