Buying used (leased) car from out of state

Question for you guys who might have encountered this before...

We're in MA and buying a car from RI. The previous owner had a lease on his vehicle and did not hold the title to the car.

He brought the car to us and we parked it in our garage; we gave him a cert. check for the agreed value, with the agreement that he'd use that money/etc. to pay off the balance on the car, and overnight us the title once he gets it from his leasing company. We did sign a bill of sale.

Now we've run into an issue where he mentioned that the leasing company did send him the title but he had to pay tax to the state (RI) before being able to sign over the title to us. This supposedly takes three weeks.

Question:

-- is this normal? shouldn't he have paid the leasing company the balance which included the tax? In which case he should have had a clear title ready to sign to us as soon as he got it?


Any thoughts?

Thx.