First, I live in California and the DMV is a nightmare. A few months back I found a car I wanted and didn't want to deal with this hassle of negotiating. I had a friend do it all on my behalf and I gave him the money to go pick it up from a private party seller. So the bill of sale was from the original owner to my friend, but my friend had the previous owner sign the title and leave all the buyer fields blank so I could fill it out later. I thought I could simply date the title and sign it and everything would go smooth. Apparently not. I signed the title the day I actually received the vehicle and not when my friend purchased it, so that's how I dated it and I guess they consider that a discrepancy. The DMV had no problem charging me sales tax, registration, and the transfer title fee without actually doing any of this since my registration is still not complete because they now want a bill of sale from the original owner to me instead of my friend. I have no idea who the original owner is and it doesn't seem feasible to go and contact him at this point. Are there any alternate methods for completing the transfer of title? The bill of sale from him to my friend was mailed in to the DMV, shouldn't they have records of that? If anyone has knowledge of how this might be accomplish please let me know.