Certificates of Title as a Practical System for Constructive Notice of Security Interests in Motor Vehicles

Authors

Donald H. Bond

Abstract

The position of a person taking security interests in motor vehicles in Washington is plagued with uncertainties. A sharp increase in the rate of defaults on loans so secured could make that position not only uncertain, but precarious. This unsatisfactory state of affairs is caused by the obsolescence of the present system for providing constructive notice of such security interests. A comparison of that system, which consists of the Washington certificate of ownership statute and the conditional sales and chattel mortgage filing statutes, with the recently-drafted Uniform Motor Vehicle Certificate of Title and Anti-Theft Act makes this fact painfully obvious. However, such a comparison should be undertaken, not solely to criticize the existing law, but to determine what should be done to improve that law.

First Page

372

Recommended Citation

Donald H. Bond, Comment, Certificates of Title as a Practical System for Constructive Notice of Security Interests in Motor Vehicles, 31 Wash. L. Rev. & St. B.J. 372 (1956).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol31/iss4/15