Unless you buy from someone providing "drive away" insurance who can tax the car, ie main dealer usually, you will need a valid certificate of insurance or cover note that can be checked electronically.

I suspect that this will slow down the used market a bit, especially from "smaller traders"

But will the insurance co update the database immediately?

I say just insure it and drive away, then when it lets you tax it then tax it.

These new tax rules were clearly thought up by a bozo! They should've scrapped the whole notion of vehicle tax in my opinion not just the disc!

I bough the car and managed to tax it online straight away no problems but it does seem like a cock up tjey should of left the system as it was just no need for the paper disc.

If it would as it should do then why is their a cock up? Seems to work properly.

There is no requirement for a car to be insured to tax it, online or otherwise.

Not true afaik. An electronic check is done if renewing online, you have to present evidence if renewing in a post office.

As far as a private sale is concerned i cant see how dvla will see that the owner has changed before the appropriate bit of signed paper has arrived. Its possible that their tax renewal system is agnostic of whom the insurance belongs to.

There is no requirement for a car to be insured to tax it, online or otherwise

To tax a car it must have insurance and an MOT that is valid at the date the tax will become effective. The check is carried out electronically either on-line, by post or at the post office.

No insurance or MOT means you cannot tax it, simples.

Over the weekend we acquired another car. The change of ownership was quite simple. Had to fill in the new keeper section of the V5 and the existing keeper and new keeper sign it, send it to the DVLA and theoretically the previous keeper will get an automatic refund of outstanding tax.

We then had to insure it and re-tax it. Insurance was simple, added it to our multicar policy. Taxed it on-line, took minutes using the reference number on the slip the new keeper retains and a Debit car.

All in all not a difficult thing to sort.

So when i see a car for private sale 100 miles away, i can do as i did before, inspect car, agree deal, pay money, insure by phone and then tax it online, immediately and all on a Saturday afternoon?

It took me less than an hour to insure the car and tax it on Saturday afternoon. Provided your insurers are open for business (I use Aviva) there would be no issue. Taxed it using lappy, guess mobile would do the same.

I stand corrected if this is the case, i assumed, wrongly apparently, that one would have to wait for the insurance to be updated and possibly the keepers name to be updated before taxing online.

The keepers details had obviously not been updated at the time, only just signed the V5.

As for insurance if you use a broker who is closed then it would be a different matter. But that would have been the same before the new system came in.

Sorry, but there is no longer any insurance check carried out online or at a post office. If the online site says there is it is because they never updated it.

They dropped the checks in December 2013.

I taxed a car which has no insurance on it this morning.

They do still check the MOT.

Just looked and it appears that although you no longer have to produce a valid certificate of insurance automatic on-line checks are carried out to ensure that insurance is in place on the car.

I taxed a car which has no insurance on it this morning

Presumably it means you are using the car thus you should have the car confiscated, be fined, awarded points etc for breaking the law.

If you are not using the car you would SORN. it.

Edited by skidpan on 06/10/2014 at 16:29