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Washington, D.C.-Congressman Gene Green (D-Houston), today, joined Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) and Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-FL) in a press conference denouncing Title Washing, the act of selling a car with troubled history to unsuspecting customers.
Sen. Lott and Congressman Stearns have introduced legislation S 3707 and HR 6093 which would help combat the following problem. Congressman Gene Green is an original co sponsor to this bill.
“I co-sponsored this bill with Congressman Stearns because in our district in Houston, Texas we have a long history of title washing problems,” said Congressman Gene Green. “In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison flooded a large portion of the city and thousands of vehicles were flooded and totaled. We found there were rings of people who would take these cars, clean them up and sell them.”
Roughly 5 million vehicles were “totaled” last year due to severe damage, flooding or theft, including 580,000 from the Gulf Hurricanes alone. Thousands of these vehicles are cleaned up and resold with no history of the cars troubled past to unsuspecting customers – a problem called “title washing.”
This problem persists because state motor vehicle titling laws are confusing and incomplete, and no central database exists to “red flag” all of the problem vehicles.
“The fact is that car titling policies differ from state to state,” continued Congressman Green. “Texas has a strong Lemon Law that requires sellers to disclose whether or not a car has been damaged in any way. This is effective on the state level, but it does not address the interstate commerce issue. We need to have a set of standards that will enable a person in Florida to tell if a car was flooded in Texas and vice versa. I believe it’s time we made this important information available to consumers and authorities so consumers can be safe on the road.
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