Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations and Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2315 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure, as referred to your Committees, was to require the Director of Finance (Director) to notify the seller of a vehicle when the buyer has registered the vehicle in the buyer's name.

Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Honolulu County Department of Customer Services.

Your Committees find that this measure was designed to address a persistent problem with automobile sales in the State. Under existing law, when a car is sold, the buyer has the responsibility to re-register the car under the buyer's name.

Until re-registration has occurred, the seller is still the registered owner, and although the seller may not be liable for violations committed with the sold vehicle after that date on which the seller notifies the Director of the sale, many sellers are troubled by the lack of closure and finality of the transaction when the buyer neglects to re-register the vehicle in a timely manner.

Therefore, your Committees support the intent of this measure, to set sellers' minds at ease.

However, your Committees amended this measure to place the burden on the seller to re-register the automobile in the buyer's name following a sale. As amended by your Committees, a motor vehicle sale will work as follows: The seller and buyer will both endorse the certificate of title, which will then be taken by the seller to the appropriate agency for issuance of a new certificate. Upon payment by the seller of the fee, a new certificate of title will be sent to the buyer for the remainder of the registration period for that vehicle. Your Committee has made the effective date January 1, 2003, to allow the administrators of the law time to change any necessary policies.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations and Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2315, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2315, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.