Your vehicle: what you must report and how long it can be held

It is the law against vehicle and parts theft and trafficking. Almost all of it speaks to the Police, dealers and crimes, but it has two articles written for the ordinary owner: one lists what you must report and within what time, and the other caps how long they can hold your car for investigation. This guide covers those two and does not pretend to explain the rest of the law.

The duties reach “every owner of a vehicle or of an essential part of one, whether a natural or juridical person.” There is no condition of age, vehicle type or value: the law speaks of the owner. The holding limit applies when a law enforcement agent stops, inspects and holds the vehicle or a part for investigation for one of the thirteen circumstances the law enumerates.

• For the theft report: a detailed description of the vehicle, including the plate, engine and serial numbers, and an account of the circumstances surrounding the facts.Verified against the official source
• For an engine or transmission change: a sworn declaration, addressed to the Puerto Rico Police and to the Department of Transportation and Public Works.Verified against the official source
• For the report: the forms the Puerto Rico Police prepare and supply in coordination with the Department of Transportation and Public Works; if unavailable, the law accepts the report in an original and two (2) copies, in the most adequate manner.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Thirty days: the limit for holding your vehicle

   This is the fact most needed when the car has spent weeks at a station. The law empowers law enforcement agents “to stop and inspect and hold for investigation for the period of time reasonably necessary not exceeding thirty (30) calendar days, any vehicle or part” when one of the circumstances it enumerates occurs. Calendar days, not business days.

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   Step 2: The extension has a written definition

   Here is what makes the limit useful, because just cause is not left to anyone’s judgement. The law provides the thirty-day term “may be extended by ten (10) calendar days where just cause exists,” and then defines it: “Just cause shall be understood as the occurrence of extraordinary natural events interrupting the work of law enforcement agents, such as storms, hurricanes, earthquakes or others keeping law enforcement agents occupied in aid and rescue work.” Neither workload nor a complicated case is in that definition.

3. 3

   Step 3: Why they may stop and inspect

   The law lists thirteen circumstances and they are worth knowing because outside them the power does not apply. That the vehicle or part has been reported as misappropriated, stolen, missing, destroyed or exported; that it displays no plates or has them altered, modified, not matching those issued by the Department of Transportation and Public Works, or not matching the inspection seal; that any serial or identification number in plain view has been erased, mutilated, altered, substituted, superimposed, detached, adapted or modified; that the information on the licence or other document does not match the physical description in some substantial respect; that there are alterations to the ignition mechanism or system or it runs without the key or directly; that there are founded reasons to believe an engine other than the original was installed and no documentation of its provenance is produced; that the locks appear forced in plain view with no satisfactory explanation; that essential parts in plain view, including the seats, do not match the vehicle with no satisfactory explanation; that the body shows in plain view perforations appearing to be from projectiles; that it is being towed with founded reasons to believe it is stolen and the tower cannot explain the reasons or the authorisation; that it does not appear duly registered at the Department of Transportation and Public Works and this is known; that it circulates with a sticker not matching its licence; or that it is an abandoned vehicle as the law defines.

4. 4

   Step 4: If your car is stolen: the report goes immediately

   The law gives no deadline in days: it says immediately. The owner must inform the Puerto Rico Police of “the misappropriation, theft, loss, disappearance, destruction or export of any vehicle they own,” and adds that “this report shall be made immediately upon learning of the facts.” It goes on the forms the Police prepare and supply in coordination with the Department of Transportation and Public Works, “and if unavailable, in an original and two (2) copies, in the most adequate manner.” The report must provide a detailed description of the vehicle, including plate, engine and serial numbers, and the account of the circumstances. The Police promptly send a copy to the Department of Transportation and Public Works.

5. 5

   Step 5: Plates, licence, certificates and sticker

   This is a duty separate from the previous one and with the same deadline. The Police must be informed of “the loss, disappearance, destruction, theft, misappropriation or loss of plates, licences, certificates or stickers belonging to any vehicle they own,” and “this report shall be made immediately upon learning of the facts.”

6. 6

   Step 6: If the vehicle turns up: ten days to tell four

   This is the most forgotten duty, and there are four recipients, not one. You must “notify the Puerto Rico Police and the Department of Transportation and Public Works, the financial institution and the insurance company, if any, of the recovery of any stolen or misappropriated vehicle,” and the law sets the term: “This notification shall be made on or before ten (10) days from the recovery.”

7. 7

   Step 7: You changed the engine or transmission: sworn declaration

   Almost nobody knows this takes a sworn declaration and a deadline. The law requires you “to notify by sworn declaration within the next ten business days the Puerto Rico Police and the Department of Transportation and Public Works of every engine or transmission change or substitution made to any vehicle they own.” And it connects with the above: one of the thirteen circumstances permitting a hold is precisely that there be founded reasons to believe an engine other than the original was installed and no documentation of its provenance is produced.

8. 8

   Step 8: Surrendering plates and title when the vehicle ends

   The law frames it as the owner’s duty and describes five different endings. You must “surrender to the Department of Transportation and Public Works the plates and licences and any other document evidencing the vehicle’s title when a vehicle they own has been destroyed, stolen, misappropriated, exported or sold as scrap or in parts or they have abandoned it as useless.” There is also a duty to request from the Police and the Department the re-registration or re-identification of the vehicle when necessary and applicable under the law.

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   Step 9: If you are buying used: two warnings from this law

   The first is about assembled cars. Once a vehicle is declared a total loss or abandoned as useless, the law provides that “its parts may only be used as replacement parts for the operation of another motor vehicle duly registered” at the Department of Transportation and Public Works, and that no motor vehicle licence shall be issued “to a unit assembled or manufactured with parts of motor vehicles declared a total loss or abandoned as useless.” The second is about insurance: the law requires the insurer or its authorised representative to perform “a physical inspection of every vehicle it proposes to insure,” and for used vehicles “at least two (2) photographs shall be taken from different angles, one of which shall reflect the plate number,” kept in the file; where the policy is exclusively public liability, the photo requirement does not apply.

Theft and plate-loss reports go to the Puerto Rico Police, on their forms. Surrendering plates, licences and title documents goes to the Department of Transportation and Public Works. The recovery notice goes to all four at once: Police, Department of Transportation and Public Works, financial institution and insurer. An engine or transmission change goes by sworn declaration to the Police and the Department. If your matter is a duplicate title, a transfer, or a transfer after a death, those have their own guides here.

• Believing there is no time limit for holding the vehicle under investigation: the law sets it at thirty (30) calendar days.
• Accepting any reason for the extension: the law defines just cause as extraordinary natural events keeping agents in aid and rescue work.
• Telling only the Police when the car turns up: the law asks you to also tell the Department of Transportation and Public Works, the financial institution and the insurer, on or before ten (10) days.
• Changing the engine without notifying: the law asks for a sworn declaration within the next ten (10) business days, to the Police and the Department.
• Keeping the plates and title of a lost, stolen, exported or parted-out vehicle: the law requires surrendering them to the Department.
• Waiting days to report a theft: the law says immediately upon learning of the facts.
• Buying a vehicle assembled with parts from a total loss: the law provides no licence shall be issued to a unit assembled with those parts.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas (DTOP)

  DTOP

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov