Sorry defender, that clause only usually applies if the car is already insured for the current owner. It doesn't allow you to drive a car that has no vehicle-specific insurance in place and contains the subclause "with the owner's permission".
As there is no satisfactory method of proving the above to a postoffice counter clerk (I can see it now.... No, honestly, this is the owner. Go on Mick, tell 'er you gave me permission to drive it...) you're on to a non-starter with that one.
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Sorry defender, that clause only usually applies if the car is already insured for the current owner. It doesn't allow you to drive a car that has no vehicle-specific insurance in place and contains the subclause "with the owner's permission".
ND, we have been here before - many times. There is NO requirement that the car is insured - cover will only be third party liabilty though, so no repayment if the driver is responsible for bending it.
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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Then the black and white policy conditions from my current insurer must be wrong.
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A safe way is to ring your insurance company and notify a change of car details, and book an immediate MOT . Then take the car to the MOT, untaxed but legal, and then on to home. Don't use it until insurance cert comes and you have taxed it.
If you are really mean you could go straight home and then ring and cancel the MOT.
It sounds a bit of a waste, but IMO £39 (?) is quite a cheap way of getting an expert appraisal of your new purchase.
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Sorry, that came across as rather abrupt.
Whilst the above may vary from insurer to insurer, there still remains one problem. The existing system for taxing cars does not appear to include an instrument for the owner to declare their authority for you to drive their vehicle. I may well drop DVLA a line and see what they say.
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In composing my email to DVLA I think I've come across the answer. The clause that allows those with fully comp cover to drive other vehicles on minimum Road Traffic Act cover expressly excludes cars owned by the insured.
If you were to present yourself at a post office with the V5 still in the previous owner's name, you couldn't tax it as your insurance certificate only covers you, not them. If the V5 has had the transfer details completed showing change of ownership into your name, you can't use the insurance certificate as it excludes other cars owned by the insured (you).
Doubtless someone will be along in a minute to prove me wrong, but I will bask briefly in the light of my inspired powers of deduction until then......
:o)
ND
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ND, I think you're right, but that doesn't help us. Surely a query to DVLA is in fact needed.
The situation for purchasers of an untaxed or SORNed car seems to be that:
1. Previous owner presumably owns the land it is on, so leaving it there is tresspass.
2. Removal of car from previous owner's land by driving said car away is illegal without a tax disc.
3. Purchase of a tax disc is impossible without an insurance certificate.
4. It is in practice impossible to obtain an insurance certificate within minutes/hours of deciding to buy the car.
For those of us that do not have access to a tow truck or trade plates, this seems a little harsh.
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The answer seems to lie in approaching the purchase of a used car in the same way as a new one.
Agree a price
Complete an appropriate receipt dicatating that the car will not be used between agreement to purchase and collection
Pay a non-returnable deposit
Ring insurers and arrange new cover note
On receipt of cover note, collect V5, tax car and collect car.
As mentioned on another thread, it may just prove a whole lot simpler to walk away from the purchase of any car declared SORN or simply untaxed. Failing that, you have a strong negotiating point on the price if you opt for a SORN\'d car, what with all the hassle you will have to go through, guv.
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Heh - expect something back stating that the car should be transported by trailer to another off-road location and left there until all documentation can be provided. Whenever I've had to contact the DVLA in cases like this in the past I've found them less than helpful.
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I've found them less than helpful.
Noooo... really?
Next we'll discover that if you post the disc to them on the 31st they'll "forget" the rule about using posting date not the received date and refuse to refund the follwoing month....
Don't forget - the rules are there to catch the conscientious and to be ignored by the wicked...
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I wonder what the DVLA do to these people when they start working there to turn them from rational human beings into soulless beaurocratic jobsworths. Or is there some kind of test during the interview process which checks for the absence of a sense of common decency?
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More reasons why above suggestions don't work.
1. Getting vendor to tax car. He probably hasn't got it insured anyway, so cannot get tax disc.
2. What if you need a car in a hurry (last one pinched/failed, for instance). You don't have the luxury of waiting a week to get the odds and ends sorted out. Those of us running a car at the bottom end of the market (relying on private sales, buying the sort of car that has been SORNed, etc.) don't really want to blow more money on car hire than on the car itself!
3. Cliff Pope: 'Then take the car to the MOT, untaxed but legal, and then on to home. Don't use it until insurance cert comes and you have taxed it.' Some of us don't have off-street parking.
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I've found in the past, the only option is simply to risk it. A friend and I bought a car between us as a project car. The tax had just run out a few days earlier. The car was bought from North London, and I have no off-street parking in London. So we had to drive it up to Derby to my friend's house. Insurance was provided by me (as the legal owner) giving him permission to drive it on his fully-comp insurance. But it was still un-taxed, so we just went very carefully. Once we'd got it there, we SORNed it.
There were loads of jam-butties about that day as well.
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3. Cliff Pope: 'Then take the car to the MOT, untaxed but legal, and then on to home. Don't use it until insurance cert comes and you have taxed it.' Some of us don't have off-street parking.
Sorry, yes, I had rather assumed that. But I thought the problem was mainly one of just getting it home legally, without the use of a trailer?
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No, it\'s of buying a car without having any way of looking after it.
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Then the black and white policy conditions from my current insurer must be wrong.
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Suggest you find another insurer then ND....:-)
Have never seen this stipulated on any of the 5 insurers I have used that have given me cover to drive other cars. I cannot see how it affects things as the insurance in force would not do you any good as it doesn't cover you. What they usually say is "we will pay provided no other insurance is in force" or words to that effect.
eg from my own insurance with Elephant:
1b. Driving other cars
If you qualify under this section, cover is limited to the policyholder and is restricted to Third Party Only. You are only covered when driving private motor cars within our territorial limits.
We will cover you for everything listed in clause 1a when you are driving any other car as long as:
your current Certificate of Motor Insurance says so
the other car is not owned by you, a rental car, nor hired to you under a hire purchase or leasing agreement
you have the owner's permission to drive the car
you are not covered by any other insurance to drive it
you still have your car, and it has not been damaged beyond repair, stolen or sold
No mention of other insurance needing to be in force.....
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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I'll have a look at the new conditions this weekend as I've recently renewed.
I remember having a discussion about this with one of the General Insurance bods back when I worked for the insurer a couple of years back.
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It seems to me there is a fundamental contradiction in the rules here. Motor insurance is personally-based. The legal requirement is for the driver to have cover, to drive. Yet to tax a car it is necessary to produce evidence that the car is insured, and any car on the road, even if not being driven, has to have tax and insurance.
So even though my insurance covers me to drive another person's car, it would cease to cover the car the moment I got out of the driver's seat. My insurance would not provide adequate cover on which to issue a licence to park the car on a road, only to drive it.
If it is argued that my insurance is adequate for taxing any other car, not owned by me, then there are millions of cars I could tax, if I felt like it.
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I reckon third party insurance on somebody else's car that REQUIRES them to have the car insured is pretty useless.
How do you know if their car is insured?
1. See insurance cert. But they might have cancelled it.
2. Ring their insurance co. But they might cancel it whilst you're driving off.
The cessation of third party cover when your car is stolen is a worry. Whilst I was test driving my last car (previous one having been pinched), relying on my third party cover, the chap whose car it was suddenly mentioned that I might no longer be insured. You've never seen anybody move so quickly out of the driver's seat.
Given that they wouldn't dream of refunding you for the period you've no car...
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Some years ago (probably 80s) I was in a very similar situation. Bought a car from a rather shady dealer, he said he'd get it taxed for me to collect a week later. When I went back he hadn't done it so I left it a few more days. Eventually I HAD to have the car so I drove it away, naively on the promise that he'd get the tax and bring it to me the next week.
A while later I went to the showroom with a solicitors letter demanding the "log book" and money to get it myself, which (after some difficulties lasting a few days) was what happened.
Mrs smokie, ever honest, said to tax the car from the start of the month in which I'd bought the car, despite about two months haviong passed.... For once I listened, and that's what I did.
About 6 weeks later...knock on the door in the evening, lo and behold a Vehicle Licensing Officer! "Excuse me Sir, you car was parked on such and such road on so and so date without displaying a tax disc". So he got the whole story, and I thought I'd got awawy with it.
Next thing, a summons appears. Solicitors at work drafted me a "plead guilty with mitigating circumstances" letter to plead by post, but I ended up being fouind guilty (much to my colleagues surpise)- a £5 fine, no costs and a criminal (or is it civil?) record...
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>>>>>>>Mrs smokie, ever honest, said to tax the car from the start of the month in which I'd bought the car, despite about two months haviong passed.... For once I listened, and that's what I did.<<<<<<<<<
You owe Mrs Smokie a box of chocs and some flowers.
If you had not declared the previous two months use on the renewal form then the offence of making a false declaration to obtain an Excise Licence would have been committed. 5,000 fine or 2 years imprisoment could have resulted.
Phew eh?
DVD
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Hmmm...
Still, I'm sure over the years she's done allright :-)
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