Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Unable to Remove Car/Transfer Ownership from Account to Private Sale Buyer

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Considering I'm in Ohio and the buyer is now back in North Carolina with the car, I sure hope that's not the case.


This page may help. The new owner will probably need to do this (part way down the page to take ownership.)

Tesla Account Support


How can I claim ownership of my car?
If you did not purchase your car through Tesla, you must claim ownership before it can be paired with the app and your Tesla Account.

Follow these steps to claim ownership:



  1. If you do not already have one, create a Tesla Account.
  2. Sign in to your Tesla Account.
  3. On the top right, select 'Account' > 'Claim Ownership.'
  4. Complete the form and submit your ownership documents, such as your driver's license, title, registration and VIN number.
  5. Tesla will verify your ownership information and determine if your VIN is available for instant transfer.
  6. If your VIN is eligible for transfer, Tesla will email you the next steps required to complete the transfer. You will need access to your car and a Wi-Fi connection to complete this process.

    If your VIN is still registered with the previous owner, ask them to remove the car and include you as the new owner. If you do not have access to the previous owner, contact us.
 
I bought mine private party recently and the owner couldn’t pass along the car to me either. Everything was acting normal for him but I never got the email on my end.

I had to do it myself by uploading a photo of the registration in my name. After doing so, Tesla immediately sent the previous owner an email and he was able to confirm the transaction.
 
I bought mine private party recently and the owner couldn’t pass along the car to me either. Everything was acting normal for him but I never got the email on my end.

I had to do it myself by uploading a photo of the registration in my name. After doing so, Tesla immediately sent the previous owner an email and he was able to confirm the transaction.

Uploading to where? If you mean on the "Claim Ownership" page, then that's no good for us either since he just gets an "Unable to process request. Please try again later." error. Ugh they make this difficult for some people.
 
Uploading to where? If you mean on the "Claim Ownership" page, then that's no good for us either since he just gets an "Unable to process request. Please try again later." error. Ugh they make this difficult for some people.
Did you try chat support yet to see if there is something wrong with account? That's what I did when there were errors with the Tesla app after trying all logical trouble shooting steps (like logging out, clearing cookies in browser, using different device/browser etc).
 
Uploading to where? If you mean on the "Claim Ownership" page, then that's no good for us either since he just gets an "Unable to process request. Please try again later." error. Ugh they make this difficult for some people.

Yes that is exactly the page I’m referring too. Sounds like it might be a larger problem with Tesla’s servers or something.
 
Did you try chat support yet to see if there is something wrong with account? That's what I did when there were errors with the Tesla app after trying all logical trouble shooting steps (like logging out, clearing cookies in browser, using different device/browser etc).

Trying chat support first thing Monday morning. How did they resolve it for you?
 
Yep... I have gone through this process before. The BUYER has to initiate this process by claiming ownership and sending the registration info to Tesla. Once Tesla processes it, the old owner's account will lose the car and the car will show up in the new owner's account. The downside of this is that it takes what feels like an eternity for them to process the paperwork. It took them 2 weeks AFTER I sent all the required info before the car was transferred to my account.
 
I am having a similar problem after purchasing\paying off my lease from Tesla. They acknowledge receipt of the money but the "remove car from account" is still blocked.

Since they were unwilling to title the car directly to the new buyer, the title will first be sent to me in my name. Hopefully that step will not delay releasing the account to the new buyer.

Does anybody know how long it typically takes for the account to be unlocked so I can transfer to the new owner?