Approximately a month ago, MAAP quietly implemented a change that increased the size of the lien holder identification field from five to six digits in order to accommodate increasing numbers of lien holders. Recently MAAP has begun to issue six digit lien holder identification numbers, which has caused a problem within Avitar Clerk/MV as the original specification still specified only five character values. If you have experienced this problem we now have a fix we can apply for you. But first, some background.

Each lien holder maintained in the MAAP system is assigned a unique identification number when it is first created. This identification number can be used to locate a specific lien holder and the information associated with them. It is not a number you would typically use when trying to locate a lien holder as it is faster to simply search by the lien holder’s name, but the number is important to DMV when assigning lien holders to specific vehicles.

As a result of this change, you may have noticed a cryptic error message when you processed a title application with a lien holder that had a six digit identification number. The error not only stopped your transaction from going forward, but it also required you to log out in order to clear the error message completely. Once you logged back in, your solution to the problem was to bypass the lookup process and enter the lien holder information manually.

The problem occurred because we were not aware that this change had been implemented in MAAP so the Clerk/MV system was still only expecting five character values. But fortunately the solution is something that we could script so give us a call if you have been experiencing this problem and we can resolve it for you. It should only take a few minutes to run the script and you will not have to install an update on each machine. But once it is done, you will be able to select a six digit lien holder by name or number without any problems. Alternatively, if you do not want to call us or you have not been experiencing the problem, this change will be implemented in the next update as well.