Senate Bill No. 626
(By Senators Snyder and Deem)
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[Introduced February 20, 1998; referred to the
Committee on Transportation.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section one-a, article three, chapter
seventeen-a of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to increasing the
time for registration of vehicles of new residents;
establishing misdemeanor offense and imposing fines.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section one-a, article three, chapter seventeen-a of
the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one,
as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 3. ORIGINAL AND RENEWAL OF REGISTRATION; ISSUANCE OF
CERTIFICATES OF TITLE.
§17A-3-1a. Registration of vehicles of new residents.
(a) Every owner of a motor vehicle, trailer or other
vehicle, shall, within thirty ninety days after taking up residence in the state, apply to the division and obtain
registration and title for the vehicle.
(b) For the purposes of this chapter there is a rebuttable
presumption that a natural person is a resident of this state if
any of the following elements exist including, but not limited
to:
(1) The person is registered to vote in this state;
(2) The person enrolls the person's child to be educated in
a public elementary or secondary school in this state;
(3) The person is receiving public assistance from this
state;
(4) The person resides or has continuously remained in this
state for a period exceeding thirty days except for infrequent or
brief absences;
(5) The person has accepted employment or engages in any
trade, profession, or occupation within this state, except that
this does not include a person who is commuting from the person's
residence in another state or whose employment is seasonal or
temporary, not exceeding ninety days; and
(6) The person has filed for a homestead tax exemption on
property in this state.
"Resident" does not include a person who is attending a
college, university or other educational institution in this state, if the person has a domicile in another state and has a
valid operator's license and vehicle registration issued by the
state of domicile. "Resident" also does not include members of
the armed forces that are stationed in West Virginia providing
that their vehicles are properly registered in their state of
residence or a member of the armed forces stationed in another
state or country providing that their vehicles are properly
registered in that state or country.
A corporation, association, partnership, company or firm
whose principal place of business is located within this state is
a resident of this state.
The provisions of this section shall not apply to vehicles
registered under proportional registration agreement.
Any person who fails to comply with this section is guilty
of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined no
less than one thousand dollars and no more than five thousand
dollars.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to increase the time for
registration of vehicles of new residents and to establish a
misdemeanor offense and impose fines for failure to comply.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.