THIS is the dumbest S.O.B. on Craigslist

dozer556 said
It's 15 days for the buyer to transfer the vehicle into his/her name, not 5.

Also, it's my understanding that they prorate the remaining time on the old tags for the new owner. In other words, if you bought a vehicle in June with tabs good through October, you would get a credit for 4 months on your new registration (you would pay the cost for 8 months, not the full 12). You still have to pay the cost for the new plates, though. I had this explained to me by two supervisors at the local licensing agency when they were trying to figure out how to do the "year of manufacture" plates on my Barracuda. I couldn't find anything about this on the DOL website, though, so it's totally possible they were misinformed (it did take them 45 minutes to figure out how to correctly charge me for using a '68 plate on my '68 Barracuda, after all).

When I did it last weekend for my sons car, the tabs were new in Feb of this year. They told me I would have to re-register it. I told them "the tabs are good until Feb" and they explained that is not the case any more. I had to pay for new registration and the vehicle is now registered (with new plates) until May of next year. No pro-rating happened.
As for the days to file the sellers report, you are right, there is no penalty after 5 days, but you could / would be held liable.
And of course, apologies are due. As seen in the second image, you have 15 days to file as the buyer and get it into your name.
Learned something new today.
Mostly, don't trust the lady at the licensing dept.
She obviously has not read the DOL website...
Thanks for the info:finga: