Just over six months ago I bought an Astra from a dealer and taxed it using the V5/2. At the time I was under the impression that the registration document would follow in due course. It never did, and I never noticed that it never did. Also, the little reminder slip never arrived.
One day in early December my partner asked why someone had put stickers all over my car, closer inspection revealed that it had been clamped as well. The tax ran out at the end of last October. Within hours it was on the back of a truck and off to a compound somewhere. It cost me £80 fine, plus £120 surety fee that would be refunded if the tax disc were produced within 14 days. Not to mention taxi fares all over the place.
I thought I should be able to get a tax disc within 14 days. So I sent off all the relevant documentation, V62, etc. that same day. After 11 days of waiting I phoned Swansea to see what had happened to my registration document. I couldnt believe they now take 4 to 6 weeks to produce a registration document.
I wrote a nice letter to the wheel-clamping unit to see if I could get my £120 back once I eventually obtained the tax disc. No chance. I was reminded that without a valid tax disc the vehicle should not be on the road.
I cant take the car off the road, I, like most other people, need it for work, also I dont have off street parking.
Yesterday, Saturday 6th Jan, I was pleased to see a brown envelope with DVLC on it. My new registration document I thought, now I can tax the car. No chance ? it was a fine for £56 for my car being parked on the road on the 2nd of December.
This is a nightmare, I am a law-abiding citizen being made to feel like a criminal. How many more of these fines are on there way to my letterbox, how much more is this simple oversight going to cost me???
And shouldnt I have got a new registration document and reminder from DVLC upon taxing the car. Surely my details would be fed into the computer in Swansea. Or am I being naïve.
John.
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John - you have my sympathies. Soft targets, us motorists.
No doubt someone will be along to say that as you are guilty, therefore you have to pay, but clearly in this case there is no commonsense being applied by anyone.
I can't think of anything to say except raise it with your local MP.
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I think you'll get a lot of stick for this from this forum!
Although I sympathise with your predicament (I've done similar myself but, thankfully, without the consequences), you must take responsibility for failing to tax your own vehicle.
Ironic how the powers-that-be react so swiftly to a genuine oversight, yet can fail to take action for weeks on some abandoned/untaxed cars.
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You taxed it?.
You made no enquiry re return of Docs (what about MOT/Insurance)?
You use it for work i.e. daily?.
You didn't know the Licence expired?
Vehicle on the road over a month untaxed before authorities acted?.
......and the authorities are to blame? With respect not in my book.
DVD
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I did a very similar thing a few years ago. Unfortunately the law is the law and should not be broken. When we do break it we have to pay the consequences but the annoying thing here is the fact that you never recieved your documents, easily forgotten about, and the DVLA's lax approach.
Unfortunately you bieng a law abiding citizen have got caught, the bloke who has never bought a tax disc will carry on without one as they never seem to get caught.
At the end of the day you have just got to grin and bear it.
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I've a lot of sympathy for John, but I think he and lots like him are victims of the fact that the whole Tax Disk ethos has been changed recently and they have been slow to catch up.
The whole car registration business has been incredibly lax until now, but has been brought into line with most other aspects of modern life - ie over-regulated, form-filling, presumptiom of guilt, etc. That is life now in this police state under President Blair.
Think of a car as a potentially very dangerous weapon, much targetted by thieves. For example, the rules for possessing and registering a shot gun are incredibly tight, rightly so. If someone 'forgot' to renew the licence, or took it out into the street having ignored all the rules,the law would be down like a ton of bricks. Cars have just as much potential for damage and attracting criminals.
It's not as if anyone can plead ignorance - we are bombarded with leaflets from the DVLA.
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Err John - I hope you are taking a bit more notice of your MOT + insurance renewal dates on this vehicle. It wasn't exactly a couple of days out of tax was it?
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John, your V5 is probably still sitting under a pile of other bits of paper and what-not at the office of the dealer who sold you the car, as he has forgotton to send it off. Have you tried going back there since you bought it?
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Try filing a claim for you losses on...
www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/
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Thanks for your kind words of support guys.
For the record my MOT and insurance are in order.
I have taken down the wall at the front of the house, where there is about seven foot between the front of the house and the pavement, just wide enought to put the car on.
I will fill in a SORN form, and leave the car in front of the house until the registration document arrives.
Yes, I do realise I will probably run foul of Hastings planning laws. Hopefully, I will have the tax on the car and the wall rebuilt before they catch up with me.
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I also recently realised that I had not received my reg document from the authorities. Phoned them on Monday 12th Jan, they said get a new V62 from post office, complete it and post to us. Received new document on 17th Jan, good service in anyones book.
Incidentally the new reg docs [Issued since Jan 1st] are very different from previous ones and seem to cover every eventuality when changing your car. It has to be signed by the seller and the buyer and each gets a portion of document to confirm the transaction. Hopefully it should check some of the very dodgy scams some people have got up to in the past.
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DVLA are going to re-issue every single V5 on their records over the next couple of years. The rationale is that this will wake up "dormant" owners who have not bothered to SORN and encourage them to do so.
In all honesty I don't see what is wrong with the high profile enforcement that's going on at the moment. They are not targetting law abiding motorists, they are targetting tax and document evaders and scrapping heaps.
One guy had the cheek to turn up to Court today in the wreck that he was up for - A good old fashioned Traffic cop spotted him and got him again.
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