Bureaucracy!

You might think it's no biggie to discontinue your license in the state you moved from. NOT!!

I wrote letters,sent photocopies and listened to countless auto-phone teller options and scoured the web site. Nada! California does not make it easy to leave.

But today I got lucky. At the tail end of a lengthy array of options I finally heard the option for a "technical agent". Eureka! After 15 minutes of being on hold, a tiny human voice squeaked out of my cell phone speaker.

It's so easy to do, it's laughable -- just not obvious at all. From the California DMV site, select Forms and then Commonly Used Forms (good so far -- didn't need advice for this).


The form you want is under the Vehicle section, "Statement of Facts" (who knew?). It's very user-friendly. You can type in it and even save what you've written. You only need to fill out section G, stating when you left the state and that you do not want to register your car any longer.

Only glitch -- no mailing address. The helpful Technical Agent gave me an address to use.