When i purchased a used car from the dealer , he gave me a license plate which expires exactly a year after. So i did not know that we need to renew the license plate. And also did not know few other things
1) In Virginia, Fairfax county, Car is considered as a property and we need to pay taxes every year. The county sends you a bill to your address (the address that you have on you title when the dealer makes it on your name). If you moved to a new address, you will miss the bill and you will pay the fine. That's what happened to me. The address forwarding with USPS did not work. When i called them, the customer support guy told me that the address forwarding does not work and asked me to update the address in the system. So i did. (of course i also paid an additional 70$ as a penalty)
2) The Car License plate need to be registered and renewed every year and you get the bill for that too. Along with that you also get two decals, that you need to paste it on the license plate (i pasted it on my wind shield and got a parking violation ticket, so dumb). Anyhow i learnt my lesson and went to DMV to get two new decals and this time i pasted them on the license plate.
3) The emission sticker. If it expires on say 06/09, better replace it in the June rather than waiting till the July.
As far as i know , these 3 things need to be taken care of. No matter how many times i change my address, i always remember to go online every OCT and pay those taxes and other fee.
Click here for fairfax county property taxes, parking tickets etc
Click here for DMV license renewal , registration etc
Please leave me comments if i forgot something else.
