A trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a tag or title usually means taking a day off of work to spend time waiting in line with other frustrated people.
But one area resident discovered that it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.
“I had just purchased a new vehicle and I had to get it registered,” Lynda Menard, a Luling resident, said. “I spent two hours at the courthouse and when I finally got to the front of the line, I found out I didn’t have all the necessary paperwork.”
Instead of waiting another week for her next day off work, Menard went to ABC Title, where she was in and out in a matter of minutes.
“I just walked right in to ABC Title and they told me exactly what I needed to have with me,” Menard said. “I went straight home, got the correct forms, and got everything taken care of in five minutes.”
ABC Title has been around since December of 2004. Lee Fabre, who owns both a location in Boutte and LaPlace, has lived inside the parish for a majority of his life and graduated from Hahnville. The only time Fabre left was to pursue his degree in industrial technology from Southeast Louisiana University.
Fabre has had a varied career, working for a contractor while in school and even spending time as a Farm Bureau insurance agent.
“But it wasn’t really for me,” Fabre said. “So I left and became a courier until I figured out what I was going to do.”
While working as a courier, Fabre would travel to all the banks in the area, as well as the airport, to pick up checks. When he had to wait for planes to arrive, Fabre took advantage of the free time and began to study for the notary test.
“When I had to be at the airport, I had two, two-hour breaks a day,” Fabre said. “Airport personnel let me study in a boardroom they had upstairs, and that’s really how I was able to pass the notary test because I could study for four hours a day.”
Fabre first took an interest in notary work when he was in college. A friend of his owned a car dealership and Fabre soon saw how easy a local title businesses made the registration process on new car owners.
“I saw how quick and easy it was and I knew it could work in St. Charles Parish,” he said.
Now, Fabre is able to provide all the same services offered at the courthouse with the exception of issuing driver’s licenses.
“We provide every type of title transfer; boat transfer, motorcycle transfer,” Fabre said. “When you come here and buy something, we pretty much take care of everything. I have hard Louisiana license plates and I have the same computer system as the courthouse.”
Fabre says that ABC Title can also help residents file for a duplicate title or get them new registration.
“If you move, we can change your registration to your new address so that everything matches and if you lose your registration, we can get you another registration,” Fabre said. “We can also assist you with taking flags off of your license.”
And residents can get all that work done pretty fast. Fabre estimates that each customer only spends about six minutes inside his store. ABC Title is open on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. for those people that can’t make the time to get registration or a title during the week. They are also open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m and set appointments for after hours and weekends.
“A lot of people have to take a day off of work to get their tag or title,” Fabre said. “If you take a day off and you come here, you get that whole day to yourself.”
In addition, ABC Title also offers courier services.
“If you have a business and you don’t want your employees to leave, call us and tell us what you’ve got,” Fabre said. “I’ll go over there and pick it up and process it and bring your plate back.”
And while ABC Title may be in the same business as the DMV, the two work well together.
“The actual DMV home office is very good to us,” Fabre said. “They answer our calls and if we have questions, they help us with them. They want to help us because we help each other.
“The few people we get here, relieves them a little bit.”
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