[CaptainYooh]

Thank you, guys, I appreciate the feedback. I feel like I’m not making my point clear enough.

I am not going to give the whole amount to the seller. He will provide me a payout statement from his lienor and I would get one draft prepared in that amount. Or, to make things even simpler, we’d meet at my bank and the teller can withdraw funds from my account and transfer them to the lienor’s account directly. Then I would get a draft for the balance payable to the seller. This is relatively simple.

The concern for me is lack of anything confirming that the lien is gonna be removed. Lienor will need to issue a no interest letter of some kind but that may take a few days I’m told. Then I can take it to the registry to clear the lean off of the VIN which may take 3-4 weeks or so.

Ideally, the seller would have this lien paid off and removed prior to the sale but they can’t, they don’t have the money to do it. If this was a real estate sale, then two lawyers would have exchanged their trust obligations to remove the mortgage and other encumbrances from the title and the buyer wouldn’t care. In the absence of lawyers, there is nothing that I know of guaranteeing that the lien will be removed upon payment. Unless I’m missing something and there is (it must be, right?).