At what point am I free of liability?

Remove the plates when they take it. It won’t matter if they never register it because they won’t be able to drive it without plates. You should already have the title so that shouldn’t be a problem. Contact your insurance agent for more precise info about when to drop coverage.

I have it all covered. I’m just curious.

Even if we remove the plate, and they put one of their own on, and they wreck before they register it, won’t it all still fall on me? Sure, they’ll get in trouble for driving a car with plates that aren’t registered for that car, but who is responsible?

We didn’t have the title. The lien holder had it, so we’re still waiting for that. It’s family, so I wouldn’t have sent her out with no plates.

I’m just curious because I once asked someone at the court house this question about another vehicle we sold, and they said something like, “If they signed the title (and they had) it’s on them.”
I was like, “But what if no one knows they signed the title?”

They can’t put a plate of their own on to replace the one you took off without registering the vehicle. If they did drive it with their plate, it would be a violation: Fictitious display.

I know they shouldn’t (vs “can’t”) but they’d be sure to be stopped with no plates. In this case we sold the vehicle to a family member and I wasn’t going to send her out without plates.

By law, you must remove your plates. (At least, here it is the law. You’re asking for trouble if you don’t. The law allows the vehicle to be driven sans plates at least one day, or home, then to the DMV.)

OK. I didn’t know that.