How to buy a dead guy's bike - Illinois

Dragonfish

Dragonfish

Slightly Obnoxious
My buddy came to me today to tell me this 70 year old lady he knows has an "older honda" in the garage and she wants to get rid of it. She has the title. I have no idea if it is signed by the decedant. If not, what hoops do I have to jump through to get a title? I'm going to go check it out Thursday after work.

~edit~ hey, I just hit my 100th post!
 
If she has the title she can just sign it for you if her other half didn't already do it.
 
A motorcycle typically gets lumped together with a deceased person's personal property and therefore would be passed to someone via the deceased man's will. Or, if he didn't have a will the property passes to his next of kin. In both cases, that person is probably the wife. However, the wife should have gotten the bike re-titled in her name (actually the attorney handling her husband's estate should have done this, if there was one). The process will be a bit of a bother for the woman since she'll need to show the title office her husband's death certificate and fill out a number of forms (see this link from the Illinois Secretary of State - http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/publications/pdf_publications/vsd275.pdf), although if she is his Executor she may be used to this sort of thing. I imagine you could hire an attorney to do the work but at that point you're looking at some increased cost, so unless it's a free bike or you know an attorney who will do the work for free, you may be better off passing on this one.
 
None of us would recommend what the other poster mentioned for obvious legal reasons, but....................................
 
Nor would we encourage listing a ridiculously low selling price on the bill of sale to save on taxes.
 
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