Request By:
Honorable Rosemary F. Center
Wolfe County Attorney
Courthouse
Campton, Kentucky 41301
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan Assistant Deputy Attorney General
On behalf of the Wolfe County Clerk, S. Kenneth Lindon, you request our opinion as to whether or not there is any prohibition against the Clerk's registering a motor vehicle to a minor. Recently, the County Clerk of Wolfe County was asked to transfer and register a motor vehicle for a minor, seventeen years old. The minor had purchased the vehicle and holds a valid bill of sale.
Before the owner of a motor vehicle (other than a vehicle used to transport passengers for hire) may operate it upon the Kentucky highways, such owner must apply for registration with the county clerk of the county in which the owner resides. See KRS 186.020. An "owner" means a person who holds the legal title of a vehicle. KRS 186.010(7).
Pursuant to KRS 186.040, upon receiving the application and fee, the county clerk shall issue to the owner a certificate of registration and ownership containing certain information [see subsection (2)] and a registration plate. See KRS 186.190 relating to the transfer of registration upon transfer of ownership.
Nowhere in the above statutes do we find any express prohibition against the clerk's registering a motor vehicle to a minor.
See KRS 186.410, relating to procuring an operator's license. KRS 186.440(1) provides that an operator's license shall not be granted to any person under the age of sixteen (16). The owner in question can procure an operator's license for the purpose of driving his own vehicle, since he is seventeen (17). Thus he is in no danger of violating KRS 186.410. See otherwise the penalty statute, KRS 186.990(3).
CONCLUSION
It is our opinion that a motor vehicle may be legally sold to a minor of at least sixteen years of age, as relates to the county clerk's effecting a transfer and registration. Thus where the vehicle owner of title is seventeen years of age, there is no prohibition against the clerk's transferring (if applicable) and registering such vehicle in the minor's name. Of course, an infant (under 18 - see KRS 2.015) can avoid his financial commitments.