A judge in San Jose has ordered Carmax, one of the country\u2019s largest used automobile sellers, to pay a total of $1.1 million for failing to give car titles on time to its customers.<\/p>\n
An investigation by the Santa Clara County District Attorney\u2019s Office found that CarMax had a pattern over the last five years of late transfers of ownership on used cars bought by customers. Until ownership is transferred, a customer cannot resell, refinance, or use their vehicle as collateral for a loan.<\/p>\n
The settlement, which was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, includes $900,000 in civil penalties, $150,000 in investigative costs, and $50,000 to support statewide consumer protection efforts.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Jeff Rosen said CarMax cooperated with the investigation and quickly took steps to improve its compliance with consumer protection laws.<\/p>\n
The case was brought by the district attorney\u2019s offices of Santa Clara, Riverside, San Francisco, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties. This judgment follows a similar settlement these DA\u2019s offices obtained in February 2025 with California AutoNation dealerships.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuying a car is a huge investment for many people, and that comes with the right to receive ownership on time,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cDealerships, whether large or small, need to meet their legal deadlines.\u201d<\/p>\n
In California, used car dealers must submit to the DMV an application to transfer registration to a buyer within 30 days of the date of sale. That same 30-day deadline applies to the certificate of ownership, commonly known as the \u201cpink slip.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of the settlement, CarMax agreed to create and enforce policies to protect consumers so that they will receive registration and ownership paperwork in a timely manner.<\/p>\n
These policies include: placing a hold on the sale of used vehicles when they do not have title in hand or a clear path to getting it within 30 days; requiring that a smog check or VIN verification is performed prior to any sale; training salespeople to ensure that vehicles on hold are not sold until it is lifted; and ensuring that a designated employee at the level of regional senior manager or higher is responsible for overall compliance.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge in San Jose has ordered Carmax, one of the country\u2019s largest used automobile sellers, to pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[106738,8407,14226,88,90,89,107907],"class_list":["post-239898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-carmax","tag-district-attorney-jeff-rosen","tag-district-attorneys-office","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-used-car-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}