Lawmakers hear bills to cap dealer documentation fees and require prompt release of vehicle titles

Representative Howard asked the Joint Committee on Transportation to consider three consumer-protection bills, including H.3690 to cap motor vehicle dealer documentation fees at $400 for transactions over $2,500 and H.3701 to require that lienholders release vehicle titles within seven days of final payment.

Howard testified H.3690 would protect consumers from what he called widely varying and sometimes "exorbitant" documentation fees paid at dealerships, and he proposed a $400 cap tailored to transactions over $2,500. He said some dealers charge several hundred dollars up to $1,200 in what he called profit-focused fees. On H.3701, he described a consumer problem in which lienholders (leasing companies or banks) delay delivering titles after payoff; the bill would impose a $500 per-day fine for noncompliance.

Committee members and other legislators described seeing documentation fees that substantially increased the effective price paid by consumers; others supported a cap and said the bill would encourage fairness. Witnesses from the dealer community and franchise dealers later expressed concerns about hard price caps without flexibility; the Massachusetts State Auto Dealers Association said dealers use such fees for cost recovery and disclosure rules apply in dealerships. No formal vote occurred; the committee took testimony and accepted written submissions.

The committee recorded the consumer complaints, the sponsor's proposed statutory fixes, and industry requests for further discussion to balance transparency and cost recovery rules.