Sobhuza Williams, an electrician who lives in Oakland, California, bought a 2008 BMW X3 for himself in 2020. His favorite things about it were the spacious and beautiful interior, the comfortable ride, and the cargo space. After it started developing electrical issues, he decided it was time to part ways with it.

As luck would have it, a man he ran into frequently while enjoying the city’s nightlife needed a car back in 2023. The two decided $1,000 was a fair price for an SUV that needed a few repairs.

When the sale took place, Williams did everything right – he didn’t hand over the keys until all the DMV paperwork (bill of sale, transfer of liability, title transfer, etc) was filled out and filed. However, the car was towed away shortly after everything was filed.

Williams discovered the car was still registered to him

Then, three months after the sale and Williams filed his share of the paperwork, he began receiving tickets in the mail. Unpaid bridge tolls from Berkeley to Oakland were piling up, and they showed no signs of stopping.

He texted the new owner to let him know he was receiving tickets, and that he needed to solve it immediately.

“You need to fill out an APPLICATION FOR TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP with the DMV ASAP so it can be in your name,” read a text message from Williams to the buyer, quoted by the SF Chronicle.

The buyer replied he’d fill out the paperwork, and Williams assumed his ordeal was over. But it wasn’t. Six more weeks of tickets flooded his mailbox, and when he asked the buyer if he’d filed the paperwork yet, he never heard back.

The DMV said he never filed the proper paperwork… Even though he did

Six months later, Williams was still getting toll violations and parking tickets for his old BMW. They added up to $34,000 in fines and the car was listed as one of the top 10 vehicles with the highest outstanding debt. At one point, he was even summoned to court over the outstanding balance.

“I didn’t know you could get summoned,” he said. He went to the DMV to ask why he was still getting tickets after he filed a release of liability and signed over the title, and a representative told him there was no record of his first visit.

Frustrated but eager to sever ties with the BMW (and to transfer the balance to the new owner), he filed a release of liability form a second time.

“Boom, that removes me,” he said. If you’ve already picked up how his luck runs, it didn’t. By December, he owed almost $40,000 in tickets and late fees.

The BMW met an unfortunate fate

Even after filing the paperwork twice, he continued to get tickets. In February, he received a notice in the mail that the BMW was impounded due to the outstanding balance.

He could either pick it up, or the impound lot owners would sell it. Williams is happy to see the expensive saga come to an end, but he definitely wishes he’d never sold it to someone he thought he knew.

“We’ve known each other for some time, that’s why I didn’t get really wise that he would do some stupid s*** like this,” he said.