Can't he just pay it off, get the lien release and give it to you? I'm pretty sure in NYS that if you bring in a lien-release and have the title (with lien still on it) signed over to you, they will issue you a new, non-liened title. I'd think Jersey has similar laws.
If so, the banks claim a lien release takes 30 days, but it really doesn't. I wanted to buy a bike a couple of months ago, but the girl selling it forgot she had a lien on the title. They told her a month, and I was impatient, so I bought a different bike. After something ridiculout like 6 days, she e-mailed me and said the lien release came in the mail. 30 days is just them being conservative, it takes much less in actuality. So I'd look into Jersey's laws and see if I could just get the old title signed over to me and bring in a lien-release from the bank. If so, tell the guy not to bother getting a new title.
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