North Dakota Makes the Body Shop Tell the Customer
Almost every damage-disclosure law in the country tells the owner, the insurer or the dealer what to disclose. North Dakota tells the shop. If you do the body work, the statute makes it your job to hand the customer a statement, and past a second threshold, to warn them they now owe the state a title. Getting it wrong is a Class A misdemeanor.
Last verified 5 August 2026. Statutory text read directly from the North Dakota Legislative Branch's official chapter 39-05 publication.
The sentence that matters
NDCC 39-05-17.2(4), in full:
"A person repairing, replacing parts, or performing body work on a motor vehicle of a model year which was released in the current calendar year or the seven calendar years before the current calendar year shall provide a statement to the owner of the motor vehicle when the motor vehicle has sustained motor vehicle body damage requiring disclosure under this section. The owner shall disclose this damage when ownership of the motor vehicle is transferred. When a vehicle is damaged in excess of seventy-five percent of its retail value as determined by the national automobile dealers association official used car guide, the person repairing, replacing parts, or performing body work on the motor vehicle … shall also advise the owner of the motor vehicle that the owner of the vehicle must comply with section 39-05-20.2."
Two duties, both on the repairer. Provide a statement when the damage is disclosable. Advise the owner of their titling obligation when the damage runs past 75 percent.
And subsection (6): "A person who violates this section or rules adopted pursuant to this section is guilty of a class A misdemeanor."
That penalty attaches to the section, which includes subsection (4). The duty on the shop is criminal, not civil.
Two numbers, and only one of them is the salvage threshold
This is the part most likely to get repeated wrong, so it is worth being blunt about.
25 percent: or $10,000: is the disclosure trigger. Subsection (3) defines "motor vehicle body damage" as damage "which equals or exceeds the greater of ten thousand dollars or twenty-five percent of the predamage retail value of the motor vehicle as determined by the national automobile dealers association official used car guide."
75 percent is the salvage-title trigger. Section 39-05-20.2(1): "The owner of a vehicle that is damaged in excess of seventy-five percent of the vehicle's retail value … shall forward the title for that vehicle to the department within ten days."
Both measure against the same NADA guide. Only the second one produces a brand. A car can sit squarely inside the disclosure regime and nowhere near a salvage title.
Note the word greater in the 25 percent test. Because the trigger is the greater of the two figures, the dollar amount governs cheaper cars: on a $20,000 vehicle the effective trigger is $10,000, which is 50 percent, not 25.
Two boundary details, because they cut opposite ways:
- Disclosure is "equals or exceeds." Exactly 25 percent counts.
- Salvage is "in excess of." Exactly 75.0 percent does not count.
Also excluded from the 75 percent determination, expressly: glass damage and hail damage. The disclosure definition separately excludes body or structural modifications, normal wear and tear, glass damage, hail damage, and items of normal maintenance and repair.
The eight-year window, and the $5 eraser
The disclosure duty reaches only vehicles "of a model year which have been released in the current calendar year and those … released in the seven calendar years before the current calendar year." Roughly eight model years.
Then subsection (2) does something no salvage brand does: once a vehicle ages out of that window, "the holder of the certificate of title with the damage disclosure may have the disclosure removed and a new certificate of title issued for a fee of five dollars."
The disclosure expires. The salvage brand does not. A previously salvaged North Dakota title carries the words "previously salvaged" forward onto every subsequent certificate, along with a notation that damage disclosure information is available from the department.
How the damage is measured: and the $35 problem
Subsection (5): "The amount of damage to a motor vehicle is determined by adding the retail value of all labor, parts, and material used in repairing the damage."
Retail value of labor. Not cost, not the insurer's negotiated rate, retail.
Then the trap:
"When the retail value of labor has not been determined by a purchase in the ordinary course of business, for example when the labor is performed by the owner of the vehicle, the retail value of the labor is presumed to be the product of the repair time, as provided in a generally accepted autobody repair flat rate manual, multiplied by thirty-five dollars."
A statutory $35 an hour. It is not indexed and has not moved.
The consequence runs one direction only. A customer who does their own work gets credited at a fraction of what the same flat-rate hours would book at a real door rate, which suppresses the computed damage figure and makes it harder for that vehicle to reach either the 25 percent disclosure trigger or the 75 percent titling trigger. Every year the rate sits unamended, more owner-repaired damage falls out of both regimes.
For work you perform and invoice, this presumption does not apply. Your retail labor value is the number.
Why this is unusual
Across the 51 US jurisdictions we surveyed for salvage-title thresholds, damage-disclosure and title-branding duties run to owners, to insurers, or to licensed dealers. Kentucky's disclosure duty names "a motor vehicle owner or a motor vehicle dealer." Alabama's names the owner or any person acquiring ownership. Wyoming's disclosure penalty reaches "any dealer or a person who holds legal certificate of title."
North Dakota names the person holding the spray gun.
Correction, 9 August 2026. This page previously said North Dakota carried the only repairer-addressed provision our survey had found. Continued reading has found a second, and we are recording that rather than leaving the earlier claim standing.
Arkansas puts a duty on the shop too. 27 CAR section 14-105(a)(1) provides that when a salvage-titled vehicle is rebuilt, "the repairer or rebuilder shall complete and deliver to the owner a signed Affidavit of Reconstruction" that fully discloses the repairs made and "lists all parts and components that were repaired or replaced"; the owner signs to acknowledge receipt. The definition reaches wide: section 14-101(12) covers any person, firm or entity doing the work "whether or not the activity is for profit," so an unpaid weekend rebuild is inside it.
The two are not the same duty, and North Dakota remains the more unusual of them:
- When it bites. North Dakota's duty attaches to ordinary body work once damage crosses a disclosure threshold. Arkansas's attaches only after a salvage title already exists and the car is being rebuilt.
- What backs it. North Dakota's is a Class A misdemeanor. Arkansas's enforcement runs through title cancellation under 27 CAR section 14-109, not a criminal penalty on the repairer.
- What must be said. North Dakota requires a statement and, past 75 percent, a spoken warning about the owner's titling obligation. Arkansas requires an itemised list of every part and component touched.
The honest limit still stands. Our 51-jurisdiction survey was built to find repair-cost thresholds, denominators and scoping language, not repairer-addressed duties. Both of these were found incidentally, and we have not run a deliberate search for them across all fifty states. Two is what we have found, not what exists.
What this means in the bay
Nothing here is legal advice, and a North Dakota shop with a real exposure question should put it to a North Dakota lawyer. But the operational shape of the statute is clear enough to plan around.
- The trigger is a number you already compute. Retail labor, parts and material; that is an estimate. The question is whether anyone checks it against 25 percent of NADA predamage retail, or against $10,000, before the car leaves.
- Model year decides whether the duty exists at all. Current year plus seven back. Older than that and subsection (4) does not reach the job.
- The second duty is a conversation, not a form. Past 75 percent you must advise the owner that they have to comply with 39-05-20.2, and that section gives them ten days to forward the title. Ten days is short, and the clock is not yours.
- Document that you told them. The statute requires you to provide a statement; it does not say the customer has to acknowledge it. A file copy is the only thing that shows you did.
- Do not quote the 25 percent as a salvage threshold. North Dakota's salvage number is 75. Confusing the two understates a customer's title exposure by a factor of three.
Sources: N.D. Cent. Code §§ 39-05-17.2 and 39-05-20.2, read from the official chapter publication at ndlegis.gov on 5 August 2026. Quoted language verified against the source text. The $35 labor presumption and the $10,000 disclosure alternative are stated in the statute and are not indexed to inflation.
General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.