In the 70’s, Insurance was less for a child driving a parent’s car vs having the car registered in the child’s name. State Farm.

A con would be: “racing for pink slips”

When a car is registered in two names, both need to sign a pink slip or DMV-type document to transfer title.

I suggest you keep it in your own name, always1, it's simpler. There's no advantage I can think of to do otherwise.

If he gets into an accident, won't you be at much greater liability (deeper pockets) in case of a law suit if the car is in your name or both names?

Who is paying for the car? If you put his name on the registration does that mean he has to have his own insurance, not just added on yours

We put our daughter's car in HER name, and made her get her own insurance policy. She was 16. It was extremely advantageous, financially, to do it that way. Adding her to our policy would have been ridiculously expensive.

We found that even though our son had the car in his name and was paying for his own policy, the insurance was ridiculously expensive. There was no advantage either way. In our state, insurance rates for males don't drop to a more reasonable numner until age 26, no matter whose name is on the registration.

For cost differences for insurance (your ins and his ins and the total), talk with you auto insurance agent.

For questions about differences registration makes for your personal liability (if that's a concern), ask a lawyer familiar with personal injury and personal liability matters.

Do you own a home and if you do are you the only person on the title or is your husband also on the home title.

It's been a while but when our kids were at home or away at school we carried them on our policy. They bought their own cars so we were never on the title. They paid their own registration. I think we just had to show they were still our dependents and their primary residence was our home.

We carried DD through college to help her out. By 18 DS was collecting vehicles, mostly motorcycles, and was doing all his own purchasing, insurance and registration footwork.

Even if you put the car in only your name now for the title, you can usually transfer it over to his name in the future without needing to smog test or jump through any of the other hoops that you encounter selling to a private party and signing over the pink slip.

Before I was allowed to take the driving test my parents told me when I’d gotten my permit that I had to save up the $500 deductible to keep in my savings account, so I walked to school and walked to my part time job until I had saved enough of my earnings to meet the requirement. From there I borrowed my mom’s car to get to appointments, piano and dance lessons, and the occasional social activity that was no more than a 35 mile (round trip) drive away on weekends (they also said no freeway driving but I did ignore them on that part because of time constraints thanks to a 10pm and later 11pm curfew, plus the 35 mile thing was easier to do when there’s a freeway route available...). I bought my mom’s car for blue book value and made payments monthly starting at age 18 so I had transportation to get to my college classes and at that point I had to get my own insurance policy. Since the car was 6+ years old the insurance wasn’t that expensive until the point where I got my first of the three tickets I’ve had in the entire time I’ve been driving.

It’s really important to research what the laws are for car registration and ownership in your jurisdiction, and to speak to your insurance company about the costs and pros/cons for all possible options. Whose name on the title for ownership, his own or on the family policy, the coverage levels, etc...I figure out what car I am interested in buying and call my insurer, to determine what the cost of insuring that vehicle would be. I contact the dealership internet sales department and nail down the price. The cost of the car is only part of what needs to be worked out in the budget.

Most likely it will be registered just in my name, but I figured since he was 18 I'd ask. I can't imagine him having a separate policy being cheaper but I'll ask Monday when I call the insurance company.

I just found some notes when I called for quotes previously from my insurance. Full coverage for son would run $2880./6 mos....$480. per month!!! and that would be on an 12++ year old car....just liability is going to run about $190. per month.

It’s because of his age, I was paying around 800/6 months for full coverage at that age. I’ve never had liability only though, if I’d had an accident that totalled my car I wouldn’t have had the down payment money to get another one to replace it without full coverage.

Why would you want only your name on the registration? Do you understand that makes you legally liable?

Are you a lawyer, lindsey?

You do know that the legal owner and the registered owner can be two different people. Are you clear which, if the driver is a third person, is liability for damages in the case of an accident? Or are there cases when it may be neither?

My cousin who was a lawyer said if both the husband and wife is on the title of a house to only register a car in one name. If one has an accident that results in a lawsuit with a large cash settlement and since two people own the house they can not take the house from you. They can put a lean on half of your house, but as long as you don't sell it they can't collect. And I'm sure there is away around that also. In my state the owner of a car is the same as the person who registers it. Of course it's different for leasing a car.

"Are you a lawyer, lindsey?"

No, I am not. But my husband is, and I worked as a paralegal for attorneys who did personal injury cases.

Are YOU an attorney, Elmer? I can answer that for you. No, you are not.

Right. That's why I don't give legal advice. That would be a good practice for you to follow too.

That's why I suggested in an earlier post in this thread that the question be given to an attorney familiar with personal liability and injury law. Did you miss that?

Hopefully nobody will engage in ‘unauthorized practice of law’ here, which includes specific legal advice from a non-lawyer. Can we please keep things friendly? If OP needs legal advice it’s best for that to come from an attorney familiar with the applicable laws in the OP’s jurisdiction.

when I called the insurance company this morning, I can have car registered in sons name and have him insurance on my policy...which is probably what I'm going to do.

always, having actually read your post and seen where you were checking this morning but still asked for suggestions I was surprised to see some of the comments about not giving legal advice. Especially when framed as a question Oh well.

Well I do hope Always ran her insurance companies policy by her legal counsel.

For those that don't get Sarc

Be as sarcastic as you wish, legal questions are answered by lawyers. That doesn't mean that such a quick and easy question requires anything more than a very short conversation. And it also doesn't mean that anyone should think they know enough to decide to move forward without knowing the answer to any question they have.

I won't repeat the white mouse joke but I think most people can find their way through their acquaintances to a lawyer to pose the question to informally.

Elmer you must lead a very sad, worrisome, anxiety filled (and expensive) life if every opinion or service must come from an expert. According to you it takes experts or professionals as you call them, to teach, experts to advise and experts to repair anything. There is something to be said for plain old common sense and life experience.

However did our country survive before all these experts became available? That's a rhetorical question of course.

Not at all, watchme, not even close but it is sad you would feel it appropriate to so speculate. At least you can be sure the boo birds I've disagreed with are waiting to give such comments huzzahs. glenda will join the group if she happens along.

Ignorance is bliss, as they say, and I encounter more blissful people than not most days. There's a difference between being ignorant (not knowing) and stupid (not knowing or caring that there's more to know) and I try to be complete when helping people who care enough to ask. Your experience may be different but I've found those who think their self-acknowledged "common sense" is all they need to get through life are more often not ignorant but rather stupid, to not recognize their own limits and to think they can do or that they know something beyond what they should be confident about.

Watchmelol, how would you like to be married to someone who is a "know it all"?....now that would be a sad and anxiety filled life!... sad that someone must sit and watch this site all day... guess we can discuss sports because someone does not know all about that :-)

I'm pretty busy most days but like to check comments as I go through the day.

I know there are women who prefer mates and friends who are simple and know-nothings. My wife isn't one of them.

Sports? I don't follow them all but I do follow several.

phoggie my FIL was just like that. Retired army Sergeant Major. No one knew more than he did and his family was always being very careful to prevent him from exploding. I just let him explode. Although he never told me but he enjoyed the arguments. Only agreed once with what I was saying at the time but later I heard him talking to others telling them exactly the same thing. It was very sad to watch him and his family. Sports would be good but do not make a disparaging word about the Iowa Hawkeyes or as I have found out fans get really pissed.

LOL..nor my Kansas University Jayhawks!

Hopefully if a member of your team misses a free throw to prevent a record that had stood for 34 years they would not blab to reporters that they had done so on purpose. I remember when if you did something like that you kept your mouth shut.