When buying a pre-owned car in the state of Maryland it is imperative to have the vehicle professionally inspected by a trusted technician as well as look into the car’s past in order to help assess its value, legal status and safety. This can all be done with a simple vehicle title search. This search will help uncover issues about the vehicle that the seller may not want you to know.

Here are just a few key benefits of running a full vehicle title check:

• Ownership History: A vehicle title check may identify the number of previous owners, registration dates, states where the vehicle was registered, sale events and more.


• Uncover Liens or Outstanding Loans: A lien is placed on the vehicle by a bank or a service facility when there is money owed on the vehicle that the owner has not paid off. A Maryland vehicle title search may help uncover if a bank or lender still has a claim on the car preventing unexpected financial liability.


• Identifies Salvage or Branded Titles: A title brand is issued when the insurance company declares the vehicle a total loss which generally means the price of repair is greater than 80% of the vehicle’s value. A vehicle title check may identify title brands such as salvage, rebuilt, TMU (Total Mileage Unknown), lemon, fire or flood-damaged. A title brand can have a considerable impact on the vehicle’s desirability on the used car market diminishing its value. In some cases, it may also affect the vehicle’s long-term reliability and safety.


• Identify Mileage Discrepancies: Some unscrupulous sellers may engage in the illegal practice of artificially inflating the vehicle’s value by reducing the mileage driven as it is displayed on the dashboard gauge cluster. A title check may help spot any odometer rollbacks or discrepancies that can indicate fraud.


• Identify Potential Title Fraud: Title fraud occurs when sellers try to pass off the car as something else. They may do this for multiple reasons: to sell a stolen car or to misrepresent the vehicle’s history and inflate its value. A car title lookup in MD may help you avoid falling prey to these unsavoury practices.


• Protects Investment: A simple title check may help by preventing you from overpaying for a vehicle with a questionable history or diminished value due to prior damage.


• Helps You Meet Legal Requirements: A vehicle with a clean history is more likely to be able to pass Maryland’s safety inspections and be registered properly.