Purchasing a car from a private seller. Nightmare.

Really? I've bought a bunch of cars, trucks and boats with a third party title. Never had a problem. People at the tag office never ask for a bill of sale or anything. The last one was a South Carolina title. Only thing they wanted was a vin verifIcation. LEO friend stopped by and filled it out. Silly since the dash was out of the car and I could have hauled that down there but I didn't mention that. Lol
Well consider yourself lucky. I went thru hell with a Ga. tittle third party. Also the 68 Barracuda in my avatar took 5 trips to DMV, over nighting paper to Texas and back. Oh did I mention it was a third party tittle? Bought it from a estate sale the owner had died. You say what you want, I will not even look at a car without an open tittle.