Existing law prohibits a person from engaging in the business of soliciting or receiving an application for the registration, renewal of registration, or transfer of registration or ownership of a vehicle that is required to be registered, for compensation, without a license or temporary permit issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. In order to obtain a license to be a registration service, existing law requires the applicant to submit an application to the Department of Motor Vehicles that includes, among other things, a bond and nonrefundable application fee. Existing law requires every registration service to keep accurate business records containing specified information and provide a disclosure to each customer that certain services may be provided by the department without an additional fee.

This bill would require, for any service that is also provided by the department, that the additional fee imposed by the registration service be limited to 5 % above the fee that the department would charge to the consumer for that same service.