ive found nc to be a pita to register a boat

well i finially get around to registering my boat in nc (only had it in tn and its been dead for a year). go to walmart with my tva reciept from tn, and my bill of sale. bill of sale wont work because its not notorized and my buddy i got the boat from has past away. the tva paper wont work because they didnt write the hull number on it. easy fix. got a piece of carbon copy and wrote the numbers on the paper. back to walmart, no problems untill a thing pops up on the guys computer saying i need a pencil trace on the hull number since its not 15 digits long. ok, well my id tag wasnt spamped it was printed and has long wore off. the guys at walmart didnt no what to do.

when i first got the boat i took the bill of sale and it seemed like all tn wanted was my money wich i was quick to give them. took all of 5 minutes.. i think im going to have to make a road trip and just register the boat in tn again. anybody got any idears how i can stamp numbers into a beer can to trace and send to reliegh to save me a 4 hour trip to tennessee :mrgreen:

I'd see if I just couldn't register it online or over the phone through TN... NC and SC are both PITAs for registration

You register your boat at Wal Mart? :?

Here in KY, you have to go to the County Court Clerk's office at the courthouse to register.

I registered a boat I had here in NC that plate would not trace. So I brought the boat with me to the NC wildlife office. I may have gotten lucky, but when the lady was given a choice of believing me or walking to the farthest end of the parking lot I could find, she chose to believe I wasn't trying to pull anything. Just a thought, maybe even a day when it's raining.

I've been thinking about this, and you might just be able to take a picture with a post-it note with the current date on it (like 3/23/09)... so they know it is the boat and it's a current picture. I'm sure that would suffice a pencil tracing of it

great idears fellers !

i like the idea of taking the boat to um on a rainy day, but if they do decide to look at it, there is no hull plate =D> i have it layin in my toolbox at the house. i never put it back on when i redid the transom

thanks for the help i think im just gonna go down the list untill something works

You register your boat at Wal Mart?

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lol yup.. i was told it was a good thing i went there first and not the tag office, or i would of been s.o.l

Hope everything works out with the registration!



I don't even want to think about having to register a boat at our Walmart! :shock: . I had enough trouble getting my fishing license recently due to the machine they use not working properly. Got my boat registration renewal in the mail the other day. If I don't want to go downtown to the Court House I can add $2 to the fee and do it by mail.

Waterwings said:

If I don't want to go downtown to the Court House I can add $2 to the fee and do it by mail.

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Isn't that the most ridiculous thing that you have ever heard of? A $2 convenience fee to do it through the mail. Even the local politicians are as greedy as they come.

It's almost worth it to me because I have to take off from work an hour and a half early to get to the court house before it closes.... almost. I've been told that I am as tight as the bark on a tree. :lol:

Quackrstackr said:

Waterwings said:

If I don't want to go downtown to the Court House I can add $2 to the fee and do it by mail.

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Isn't that the most ridiculous thing that you have ever heard of? A $2 convenience fee to do it through the mail. Even the local politicians are as greedy as they come.

It's almost worth it to me because I have to take off from work an hour and a half early to get to the court house before it closes.... almost. I've been told that I am as tight as the bark on a tree. :lol:

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It is rediculous! Especially since I'm only about 10-15 minutes away from the court house, but finding a parking spot downtown is frustrating to say the least.

Oh man I went through all of this in NC when I bought a boat from a friend of a friend . The boat was previously registered in Indiana. Lucky for me I live near Raleigh, so me and the guy selling the boat just went downtown I said "here stands the guy selling me the boat, it is not stolen" and they finally relented and registered the boat! So if you show up downtown in person it may help.

In my experiance tracking down titles for cars, boats, r.v.'s, (and everyhting else that might have a title) don't waste your time talking to the person at the counter if you have an unusual situation.

Generally, they have beurocratic requirments that must be met. If a single piece of paper (or whatever) is missing or not filled out, they will reject it and tell you there is nothing they can do until the requirments are pprecisely met.

Oftentimes, that is not true. However, because they are poorly trained, they are not even aware of other options you may have. They may even get upset when you say "surely there has got to be another way to do this."

Skip them and move straight to a supervisor as soon as you can. They are the only ones who can provide you with all or most of the answers, and the only ones that can give you any "wiggle room", if that is possible.
Good luck!

thanks fellers!

mrwiggins said:

Skip them and move straight to a supervisor as soon as you can. They are the only ones who can provide you with all or most of the answers, and the only ones that can give you any "wiggle room", if that is possible.
Good luck!

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I've also found the supervisor can be more helpful and one of the best ways to get to talk to him/her is to be polite and calm about it. Agree with the person and say something like "Yeah, this sure is messed up, I wonder if your supervisor has ever run into something like this".