South Carolina is changing how dealers reassign vehicles. Effective June 1, 2026, you can no longer use the PTO form to reassign a vehicle to another dealership or as a final assignment to an individual. Here's what to use instead, and when.
The SCDMV announced the change in the Spring 2026 Dealer Connection. It builds on the May 2025 rollout of the new DRA-001 form. If you reassign vehicles between dealers or sell wholesale, this affects your paperwork directly.
What changed on June 1, 2026
For years, dealers leaned on the PTO (Affidavit & Notification of Sale of Motor Vehicle) for a lot of situations, including reassignments. That stops for reassignment purposes.
As of June 1, 2026, the PTO can no longer be used to reassign a vehicle to another dealership or as a final assignment to an individual. The SCDMV wants reassignments documented on purpose-built forms that keep the title chain clean.
Which form for which reassignment
This is the part to memorize. The form depends on who you're reassigning the vehicle to.
| You're reassigning to... | Use this |
|---|---|
| Another dealership | The DRA-001 (SC Dealer Reassignment Form) or the back of the title |
| An individual or business | The back of the title or Form 4031 (Secured Bill of Sale) |
So the DRA-001 and Form 4031 are not competing forms. They cover different ends of a transaction. Dealer to dealer leans on the DRA-001. Dealer to a retail buyer, when you're not using the back of the title, leans on the Form 4031.
The DRA-001 (Dealer Reassignment Form)
The DRA-001 came out May 1, 2025, built by the SCDMV in partnership with the South Carolina Automobile Dealers Association (SCADA) and the Carolina Independent Automobile Dealers Association (CIADA). It standardizes dealer-to-dealer reassignments and preserves the continuity of the title chain when a vehicle moves through the dealer network.
One transition note from the SCDMV: dealers may keep using DRA-001 forms that have the lien holder error printed on them until that stock is used up. After that, the corrected version is the standard.
Form 4031 (Secured Bill of Sale)
Form 4031 is your tool when the title isn't in hand. If a lienholder is holding the title, or it has been lost, the Secured Bill of Sale documents the transfer and includes the odometer disclosure. After June 1, 2026, it's also one of the two acceptable ways to reassign a vehicle to an individual or business (the other being the back of the title).
What the PTO is still for
The PTO isn't going away. It just can't be used for reassignments anymore. You still need a PTO when a plate is transferred or purchased, and it carries the property tax notification. If you transfer or sell a tag with the deal, the PTO still has to be in the packet, with the property tax section completed and signed.
Where to get the forms
The DRA-001 and Form 4031 are both available through SCADA. You can order them online and have them shipped to your dealership:
The DRA-001 is also available through the CIADA.
How KGI makes this easy
Here's where the right software saves you the headache. The KGI DMS is set up to print directly onto these forms. You feed the blank DRA-001 or Form 4031 through your laser printer, and KGI fills it in with the deal data, lined up in the right fields.
No handwriting. No squinting at carbon copies. No deal getting kicked back by QA because a field was missed or illegible. You keep a stack of the blanks on hand, and the software does the filling. When the SCDMV updates a form, we update the layout, so the version that prints is the version the state wants.
That's the whole idea behind our dealer management software: take the paperwork that slows a deal down and make it a button.
The bottom line
Mark June 1, 2026. Stop using the PTO to reassign vehicles. Use the DRA-001 for dealer-to-dealer reassignments, the back of the title or Form 4031 when you're reassigning to an individual or business, and keep the PTO for plate transfers and property tax notification.
Order your DRA-001 and Form 4031 stock from SCADA, keep blanks on hand, and let your DMS print them. For the full list of SC dealer forms and when each one applies, see our SC DMV paperwork guide.
Sources
- SCDMV Dealer Connection, Spring 2026 (PTO / DRA-001 usage update, effective June 1, 2026)
- SCDMV clarification on dealer-to-dealer reassignment forms (DRA-001 effective May 1, 2025)
- South Carolina Automobile Dealers Association (SCADA): scada.org
