Man that does suck! Sorry to hear that you went to all that trouble and the seller wasn't aware! That's why I love Alberta...a car can change hands a bizillion times as long as Long as you have a Bill of Sale and it was registered at least once in the province - fill yer boots! Cars from other jurisdictions just need a safety inspection and you're good to go. However our new leftie nanny state overlords will probably screw that up as well. Pissed off the farmers and oil patch may as well go after car guys...
I have a very loose understanding of what happened/ is happening in the USA with the title thing. Its convoluted though... Back around 1996 as the US OBD2 spec cars started production, the EPA was behind a piece of legislation the would allow the federal govt to subsidize trade in values on cars that failed emissions testing. Loose interpretation of the rules was they would crush anything that failed and give a trade subsidy towards a current year new car only...thus getting old polluters off the road and out of the part supply. This legislation came up regularly but never made it into law.
2008 economy issues... Obama administration already working on new CAFE standards proposal, change this legislation from emissions standards to fuel economy standards and succeeded to create "cash for clunkers" program... the same stupid idea floating around forever for emissions.
I can't tell you all of the pieces...lawmaking is a game of "overcomplicate it until nobody sees what your hiding in there". one good sized piece of legislation is like an encyclopedia set of books to read... and they piece this crap through until they can roll it out.
Around when the cash for clunkers thing went out, they had already been putting together stuff for vehicle titling in the name of theft prevention and to stop scumbag used car industry from "washing titles". Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused a lot of flood vehicles and afterwards according to scumbag standard practice the used car industry was full of them without "flood damage" titles. If they ran a title transfer between certain states... they could "lose" the branding and sell the car as if it never happened.
There has been pressure from the federal government on the state governments to revise their vehicle titling laws to prevent this stuff which is good. Part of that includes increased BS with "open titles" on motor vehicles. They are tougher in most places than they used to be, but these are state law issues so it will never really be uniform. The laws are there for good reasons, but there has been an underlying influence from the tree huggers to remove old cars from the pollution picture. Something like 1% or cars make 99% of vehicle emissions, which includes race cars classics and the annoying modified Honda with the 'Fart Can' exhaust. How many cars trailered to the drag strip still have titles... the ones that don't will get tougher to put back on the road.
Over the last 5 years that I have really paid attention due to a title problem of my own... the "lost title" services that advertised in Hemmings all went away... and lots in the state of FL did too. Recently Florida has brought back something called a "bonded title"... which may provide a way to get a title without a court order. I have noticed a few more businesses offering to help with vehicle titles advertising again too. Maybe this stuff will loosen up a little... but it was an area of focus and it did affect lots of places...
