Terms Used In West Virginia Code > Chapter 17A > Article 3 - Original and Renewal of Registration; Issuance of Certificates of Title

• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• Commissioner: means the Commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles of this state. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Concurrent resolution: A legislative measure, designated "S. Con. Res." and numbered consecutively upon introduction, generally employed to address the sentiments of both chambers, to deal with issues or matters affecting both houses, such as a concurrent budget resolution, or to create a temporary joint committee. Concurrent resolutions are not submitted to the President/Governor and thus do not have the force of law.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• dealers: is a general term meaning, depending upon the context in which used, either a new motor vehicle dealer, used motor vehicle dealer, factory-built home dealer, recreational vehicle dealer, trailer dealer or motorcycle dealer, as defined in §. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Division: means the Division of Motor Vehicles of this state acting directly or through its duly authorized officers and agents. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Factory-built home: includes mobile homes, house trailers, and manufactured homes. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Foreign vehicle: means every vehicle of a type required to be registered hereunder brought into this state from another state, territory, or country other than in the ordinary course of business by or through a manufacturer or dealer and not registered in this state. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• highway: means the entire width between boundary lines of every way publicly maintained when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• House trailers: means all trailers designed and used for human occupancy on a continual nonrecreational basis but may not include fold-down camping and travel trailers, mobile homes, or manufactured homes. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Implement of husbandry: means every vehicle which is designed for or adapted to agricultural purposes and used by the owner thereof primarily in the conduct of his or her agricultural operations, including, but not limited to, trucks used for spraying trees and plants: Provided, That the vehicle may not be let for hire at any time. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• in writing: includes any representation of words, letters, or figures, whether by printing, engraving, writing, or otherwise. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Low-speed vehicle: means a four-wheeled motor vehicle whose attainable speed in one mile on a paved level surface is more than 20 miles per hour but not more than 25 miles per hour. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Manufacturer: means every person engaged in the business of constructing or assembling vehicles of a type required to be registered hereunder at a place of business in this state which is actually occupied either continuously or at regular periods by the manufacturer where his or her books and records are kept and a large share of his or her business is transacted. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Mobile home: means a transportable structure that is wholly, or in substantial part, made, fabricated, formed, or assembled in manufacturing facilities for installation or assembly and installation on a building site and designed for long-term residential use and built prior to enactment of the federal Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 (42 U. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Motor vehicle: means every vehicle which is self-propelled and every vehicle which is propelled by electric power obtained from overhead trolley wires, but not operated upon rails. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Nonresident: means every person who is not a resident of this state. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Offense: includes every act or omission for which a fine, forfeiture, or punishment is imposed by law. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
• Owner: means a person who holds the legal title to a vehicle, or in the event a vehicle is the subject of an agreement for the conditional sale or lease thereof with the right of purchase upon performance of the conditions stated in the agreement and with an immediate right of possession vested in the conditional vendee or lessee, or in the event a mortgagor of a vehicle is entitled to possession, then the conditional vendee or lessee or mortgagor shall be considered the owner for the purpose of this chapter. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means every natural person, firm, copartnership, association, or corporation. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• personal property: includes goods, chattels, real and personal, money, credits, investments, and the evidences thereof. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Pole trailer: means every vehicle without motive power designed to be drawn by another vehicle and attached to the towing vehicle by means of a reach, or pole, or by being boomed or otherwise secured to the towing vehicle and ordinarily used for transporting long or irregularly shaped loads such as poles, pipes, or structural members capable, generally, of sustaining themselves as beams between the supporting connections. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Probation officers: Screen applicants for pretrial release and monitor convicted offenders released under court supervision.
• Public law: A public bill or joint resolution that has passed both chambers and been enacted into law. Public laws have general applicability nationwide.
• real property: include lands, tenements and hereditaments, all rights thereto and interests therein, except chattel interests. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Recreational vehicle: means a motorboat, motorboat trailer, all-terrain vehicle, travel trailer, fold-down camping trailer, motor home, or snowmobile. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Road tractor: means every motor vehicle designed, used, or maintained for drawing other vehicles and not constructed to carry any load thereon either independently or any part of the weight of a vehicle or drawn load. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Semitrailer: means every vehicle with or without motive power designed for carrying persons or property and for being drawn by a motor vehicle and constructed so that some part of its weight and that of its load rests upon or is carried by another vehicle. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Special mobile equipment: means every self-propelled vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property and incidentally operated or moved over the highways, including, without limitation, road construction or maintenance machinery, ditch-digging apparatus, stone crushers, air compressors, power shovels, graders, rollers, well drillers, wood-sawing equipment, asphalt spreaders, bituminous mixers, bucket loaders, ditchers, leveling graders, finishing machines, motor graders, road rollers, scarifiers, earth-moving carryalls, scrapers, drag lines, rock-drilling equipment, and earth-moving equipment. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• State: when applied to a part of the United States and not restricted by the context, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories, and the words "United States" also include the said district and territories. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
• Trailer: means every vehicle with or without motive power designed for carrying persons or property and for being drawn by a motor vehicle and constructed so that no part of its weight rests upon the towing vehicle but excluding recreational vehicles. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Truck: means every motor vehicle designed, used, or maintained primarily for the transportation of property. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
• Truck tractor: means every motor vehicle designed and used primarily for drawing other vehicles and not constructed to carry a load other than a part of the weight of the vehicle and drawn load. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1