Buying a car without a title, but how do I get one?

Woodsman341 said
Hey everyone,

So I'm looking at buying a pretty nice daily driver from Georgia, but the buyer has no title, just a bill of sale. The titled owner was put into a nursing home some years ago with dementia, and his house was sold at an estate sale, Dart was in the barn. The house buyer sold the car to a friend, who is now selling it years later. There's no feasible way to track down the original owner, if he's even still alive.

How in the world do I get a title in my name from just a bill of sale? South Carolina DMV says it's impossible, that even salvage yards carry actual titles, so I can't even register it as salvage.

Thoughts? If I can't do it, then obviously I won't buy the car, because what I really want is the body, not the mechanical bits.

Thanks!

Im curious.

Are there plates on the car?

Also, if the house was sold and the car was in the barn but not listed as part of the estate by vin #, technically, it wasn't sold and still belongs to the original owner ( hence why I asked about the plates). If the right person wanted to , it could easily now be reported as stolen.

Its very straight forward.

No bill of sale and ownership transfer by the original owner or the estate, the car still belongs to the original owner.

Not sure how US Motor vehicle laws work in SC but I'm fairly certian there has to be a papertrail to determine ownership in order to transfer the vehicle to a new owner.