Buying an out-of-state car, with expired tags, and no title. Some help please? Cali.

[Teh Luckinator]

Well fuck, where do I start.

I'm currently in the process of buying a car. Conditions:

Person I'm buying it from is not the owner
Car has Utah tags
Tags expired in 2007
Don't have the title
Original owner is in Utah
Original owner tried getting a duplicate title, they won't give it to him because of back fees
Doesn't wanna pay back fees (fucker!)

Basically the dude I'm buying the car from is a handyman or some shit, he did a job for some guy and the guy gave him the car since he couldn't pay. Well, the car was never registered under the handyman's name (person I'm buying it from), thus, no paperwork. I'm not even sure if the handyman can get a hold of the original owner.

The car is a fucking steal, but I'm wondering how to go about this.

First thing that popped up in my mind was to do some sort of lien sale, so I talked to my buddy who works at a towing yard, and he said that it would cost around $700, and would take 45 days because of the process. Fuck.

It'd be a lot easier if I had the title, but I don't.

Any ideas? If I could get my hands on the title that would probably solve a lot of problems, but I'm assuming I couldn't even get it if I tried, because I'm not the original owner.

I'm in California btw.