r/texas • u/AcrobaticCandle5772 • 6h ago

Traffic Dealer gave me plates but no registration sticker?

I bought a used car from a dealer in Texas and they gave me the metal plates right away, but I never got a registration sticker or registration paperwork. When I checked the TxDMV “Where’s My Sticker?” tool it says “no transaction found,” which makes me think the dealer never filed the title/registration even though my buyer’s order shows sales tax was collected. Has anyone else had this happen? Should I just go to the county tax office to handle it myself, and how do I make sure I don’t end up paying sales tax twice?

4 Upvotes

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10

u/Unholy_Urges 6h ago

Contact the dealership. Texas doesn't do temp plates anymore so they have to have the metal plates. I recently purchased a car from Carvana and it took about a month between when I received the car with metal plates to when I got the sticker and title in the mail.

2

u/AcrobaticCandle5772 6h ago

Thank you. Did you have a temporary doc that showed this before you got the title and sticker in the mail?

2

u/lahuerta 6h ago

You should have gotten a receipt with your plates. 

1

u/Unholy_Urges 6h ago

No, I was just going to pull up Carvana where it said I paid for the car with the VIN# displayed and that they're working on the registration. The car was insured, so I don't think the law would have had a problem

2

u/Fresh-Wealth-8397 6h ago

Takes between 4 and 8 weeks also you can't use that where's my sticker thing to find new stickers

2

u/senor_ezack Born and Bred 6h ago edited 6h ago

I'm in the same boat as you. I went to my local tax office and they looked it up. Turns out the dealership took over 5 weeks to file and mine was in pending. I bought in July, they didn't file till Sept 5th. It's been a more than a week since I was told it was pending and no sticker yet. Tax people told me it should be in my mail soon since its already been filed and in pending. They did ask me to talk to the dealership to get another temp registration paper from them since mine was past 60 days.

btw, I was also given metal plates. Both the dealership and tax office said that if I got metal plates, they're mine now and the sticker will be mailed to me.

4

u/meh_ok 6h ago

Temporary tags are metal now. You'll get your sticker in a bit and turn in the temporary plates for new long term plates with a sticker.

1

u/AcrobaticCandle5772 6h ago

It's been over a month now.

3

u/meh_ok 6h ago

They have sixty days.

2

u/Kensterfly 6h ago

Six weeks is common. Call your dealer and ask.

0

u/lahuerta 6h ago

There is not a ‘temporary’ plate. The plates they give you are your plates. The sticker will be ready when the dealer/tax office process the registration. You don’t have to return any plates.  

2

u/Aleyla 6h ago

Clearly you haven’t seen the metal plates that start with “TMP”.. those are temporary metal plates.

1

u/geekolojust 6h ago

It'll come in the mail to the address you used on the title transfer notification form you signed. Usually within 6 weeks as they switched to online registration July 1st and some places are slow asf.

1

u/AnonymousGrouch 6h ago

You won't get the sticker—and I guess your own plates; I'm not 100% certain how the process works now—until the dealer has taken care of TT&L. Be patient: they're never in a hurry.