Halfway through my build I stopped in at the county motor vehicle office and asked them about the process. When I mentioned "homemade camp trailer" the gal's eyes got wide, she brought her hand up to her mouth and said, "Oh," while slowly shaking her head, "we don't do that here, your going to have to get ahold of her." The word her was spoken with emphasis –as if her was somekind of lengendary entity of some sort. The clerk dug into her drawer and handed me a business card. I looked at it and saw below the person's name was the title: "Idaho Motor Vehicle Investigator" in big bold print with an address three hours away in Idaho Falls. I was also informed that the investigator would have to inspect the finished build and she rarely "came up to Salmon." I sent the MVI an email and was told that she would have to look at my receipts and that "each SPCV titling process is different." That last phrase left me with a chill. Different?
I mentioned this to a long-time deputy friend of mine. His eyes squinted down, his smile faded and said, "Yeah, I've heard of her too..." Jeez, I thought.
In reading up on Idaho's home built camp trailer laws and a bit of Googling, I've come to conclude that the titling of a "Specially Constructed Vehicle" in Idaho (which includes camp trailers) is for two purposes. The first is to make sure one is not running a teardrop chop shop or trying to launder a stolen tear. The second reason is to squeeze sales tax for any out'a state purchases.
Last week I emailed her, the MVI, and sent her several build pictures and a 13 page PDF of most of my major receipts. I'd kept the majority of my receipts along with a spreadsheet of dang near every thing I'd purchased. After a short talk on the phone we agreed to an inspection date.
Prior to the three hour drive (towing Flash), I split the spreadsheet into two documents: The first was for those items that I'd paid the Idaho (6%) sales tax on and the second was for those items I had not –Montana, Amazon, and eBay mostly.
I was curious about what she would look like. Who was I really dealing with? Was she going to measure my trailer width and make sure I had the over-eighty lighting stuff? Was she going to check the tensile strength of my safety chains with her massive forearms?
When I arrived at the MVI's office, she did a quick teardrop walk around. She said she'd printed out the photos I'd sent and they would go in my file –I think those photos helped. She wanted to look at my Idaho driver's license (forget it if you' don't live here). We then sat down and I showed her the two spreadsheets. She looked them over, filled out a couple of forms, I signed an affidavit swearing the trailer was highway legal, wrote her out a check for the sales tax and some administrative costs. She attached a VIN on the teardrop, gave me copies and I was done.
It was easy. I think it was because of my documentation: Build photographs, receipts, and those damn spread sheets!
My next adventure will be with Hartford Insurance. I'll post that too.
Tony
On the Title Highway:
p.s. I don't know what the big deal over her is all about. She was polite and proffessional throughtout the process. No black uniform or SS tats on her neck.
. How do they handle title transfers from other states? I'm considering a move out west, and am curious what new headaches I will find....
