A state law that went into effect on New Year’s Day now allows the transfer of motor vehicle titles to be registered in any county. Previous law required title changes to be registered in the county where the new owner of the vehicle lives.
Bruce Anderson, president of the Iowa Automobile Dealers Association, said it’s an adjustment to the way people buy vehicles today.
“You used to go to your hometown local car dealer and that’s where you would shop, but with the advent of the internet online automotive shopping customers are shopping all over the state,” Anderson told Radio Iowa in 2024. “With some brands, especially with higher luxury brands, there aren’t dealers in every county, so a single dealer might be working with upwards of 40 or 50 different county treasurers.”
Anderson said this gives auto dealers a familiar, local point of entry to file the vehicle’s title, register a lien if the customer took out a loan to buy the vchicle, and get license plates ordered.
“It should eliminate a lot of delay and make the titling and registration process quicker. Customers should get their plates quicker, their new registration quicker,” Anderson said. “It’s also a plus for law enforcement because instead of having to put this information in an envelope and sending it across the state, potentially have it come back if there’s a discrepancy on postage amounts or something like that. It’s getting the information into the database quicker.”
The law has also increased the filing fees for vehicle titles by $10 to increase the amount of the fee county treasurers get to keep. Those fees had not been increased since 1989.
Titles for mobile homes must still be registered initially in the county where the buyer lives.
(This post was corrected to correctly reflect the fee increase is to increase the amount county treasurers may retain.)