DVLA have mislaid details of a motorcycle we sold - do you have any advice?
My son sold a motorbike back in the spring. Nothing wrong with the deal. He sent the relevant bits off to the DVLA next day. Now, six months later, the DVLA said he would be responsible for any fines etc as they had no notification. After spending many hours trawling through mobile phone records he located the buyer, who was only too pleased to co-operate and details were posted to DVLA - this was sent recorded delivery - with a covering letter that he had done nothing wrong and either the Royal Mail or the DVLA had mislaid the original. He now has notification that he is liable for a fine or to be taken to court. Any advice? It seems the customer is wrong whichever way they do it.
Asked on 28 December 2013 by BH, Hereford
Answered by
Honest John
Since you have the evidence and you have the witness, tell the DVLA to take you to court where you will not only prove you did nothing wrong, both you and your witness will demand compensation for your wasted time, and if it is not awarded in the Magistrates Court you will sue for it separately in the Small Claims Track of the County Court.
The DVLA processes around 1,000,000 documents a week and has automated processes to chase things up when documents have not been processed. Unfortunately this procedure lays the burden on the keepers, even though the real fault may lie with the DVLA or with the Post Office. But you have a very strong case. Both the old keeper (your son) and the person he sold the bike to sent your individual parts of the V5C to the DVLA, then repeated the process. As soon as this goes one step up the food chain at the DVLA they will drop it.
Update: BH later wrote back to tell me this is exactly what happened.
The DVLA processes around 1,000,000 documents a week and has automated processes to chase things up when documents have not been processed. Unfortunately this procedure lays the burden on the keepers, even though the real fault may lie with the DVLA or with the Post Office. But you have a very strong case. Both the old keeper (your son) and the person he sold the bike to sent your individual parts of the V5C to the DVLA, then repeated the process. As soon as this goes one step up the food chain at the DVLA they will drop it.
Update: BH later wrote back to tell me this is exactly what happened.
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