Sign Next of Kin Papers to Buy a Car

by Colleen
(Toms River, NJ)

Question: Do I have to sign next of kin papers when buying a 2007 car from dealership????? I'm putting $1500 down and paying $286 month...It's a 72 month auto loan.

Answer: I have never heard of anything like this. I'm not sure if this is a New Jersey thing or the lender that you'll be financing with.

I have two things I can think of here and the first one I'm not even sure if it went through or not.

1) At one point New Jersey (back in 2010 I believe) had wanted to form some sort of Next of Kin registry in case of a serious accident. They were going to call it Sara's Law.

I am pretty sure this was going to be voluntary and I did not remember it in anyway being part of the car buying process.

2) The other is that if you are financing with a credit union you will need to open a savings account (at least with the credit unions I work with) and they ask for next of kin in case you were to pass away. If you died, then they'd know who to give the money in your account to.

None of the credit unions that I work with make completing the next of kin section of the membership application mandatory however.

I would guess that it would probably be one of these things, but can't say for sure as I've never been required by law or by a lender to get next of kin info for an auto loan.

Hope this helps,
Justin