In these days of ANPR etc., there's no hope, is there, for somebody wanting to buy a car with no tax from a private seller.
How do people do it?
|
|
Give seller small deposit to hold car, get insurance certificate/cover note issued (the insurance company I use allows you to print them online same day), and trundle along to Post Office for tax disc. Return to seller with rest of money and off you go.
|
But the post office will only accept an original - not a photocopy or a printout. Or has this changed? (I remember once getting away with a faxed copy certificate by printing it onto yellow paper and removing the header and footer...)
|
|
This has changed. When I bought a car last August, I emailed a PDF of my website-generated insurance certificate to the seller, who printed it off and got the car taxed for me at a Post Office that day. My insurance company does not issue "originals" at all - they never post anything. If you want the cert, you've gots to print it from the website.
|
I thought insuredaily.co.uk would be the ideal solution. £20 for the privilege.
However, their website states: Road Licensing (Car Tax)
insuredaily.co.uk insurance certificates provide evidence of insurance cover in the format prescribed by Road Traffic Act legislation. However, the DVLA and UK Post Offices will not normally accept electronically downloaded documents for road fund licence purposes. Therefore, you should not purchase temporary insurance under this arrangement solely for the purpose of obtaining a road fund licence. Road fund licences should be obtained using documentation supplied by the provider of appropriate annual insurance cover on the relevant vehicle.
|
|
Since the third of this month I've been insured with Swiftcover, who only provide downloaded documents and do not send anything out by post. It doesn't matter to me as I always renew the RFL on-line but I wonder if others have had problems with the Post Office accepting Swiftcover insurance certificates.
|
We all want to see every car on the road correctly taxed so why do they insist on making people jump through hoops to get their tax.?
The post office should just stick to selling the tax discs and let the police handle the insurance and mot issues.
|
We all want to see every car on the road correctly taxed so why do they insist on making people jump through hoops to get their tax.? The post office should just stick to selling the tax discs and let the police handle the insurance and mot issues.
Because I imagine that a small but signifacnt number would tax the car with no insurance in place! (although I am always in favour of making life easier)
|
|
|
|
Mapmaker the keywords here are "temporary insurance" like provided by insuredaily.co.uk and Norwich Union (Aviva). These obviously cannot be used.
When I got quotes for our car recently some were offering not to send document - you can access and print the documents when needed.
What I don't understand is how the Post Office can check a printed document is legitimate. I could download one presumably and edit it before printing if I know what I am doing.
|
It's is only if you don't have a renewal or a returned V5 that the Post Office won't accept the insurance document if locally printed.
Renewals have a bar code and the just scan it in and check insurance online via the MID.
|
|
But you cannot use these temporary (up to 30 days) insurance policies. For fairly obvious reasons.
|
A story was told to me:
A guy bought an untaxed two year old car. He'd HPI'd it which gave him some limited form of insurance for use on the road (do they still do that?). He booked an MOT and told them he was using it as a general check (it was only two years old and didn't need an MOT). He had no intention of taking it for the MOT, but was only using the booking for cover. He intended to cancel the booking when he got the car home.
On the journey home he was stopped by the BIB (ANPR'd?). He told them how he'd only just bought the car, showed them the receipt, bit of V5, HPI insurance cover and told them the tale about taking it for a pre-booked MOT for a check over. They didn't check the MOT booking, but because he had a believable story(?), they let him go.
He got home, cancelled the MOT and the car sat there for several weks until he wanted to put it on the road.
|
|
10 out of 10 for creative thinking but technically he misled / lyed to the Police as he had no intention of getting it checked. The fact he got away with it is neither here nor there. He'd have to declare SORN straight away when he got home if not, an 80 quid fine and back tax payable.
|
|
|
|
>But you cannot use these temporary (up to 30 days) insurance policies. For fairly obvious reasons.<
The last 2 new cars I have bought have had temp 7 day cover provided by manufacturer/insurance company deals. The dealer has used this as proof of insrance to tax the new vehicle.
So what is the difference between this and ' (7)day cover'?
p
|
A dealer can tax a car for you on his own insurance. As indeed can a private seller if he is still insuring the car.
You can buy insurance, and cancel it straightaway.
The whole having-insurance-to-tax-a-car-at-a-post-office bit is therefore pointless. Why then not allow temporary insurance.
You don't need an MOT with a year on it to tax the car; one that expires tomorrow is perfectly fine.
|
In my experience trying to tax a car at a post office is bad news. They will find fault with virtually any of the documents you take in, won't accept your insurance certificate, won't accept MOT certificate because they say there's an alteration been made, all these things have, over the years, happened to me personally.
Now I do my car tax online and it's really great. No queueing up behind other people with horrible coughs and colds, no arguments with staff at the counter, it's really easy just to hit a few keys on my PC and the tax disc arrives in the post a few days later.
As a matter of interest, I have my doubts whether the post office would accept my current MOT certificate, anyway. After I had the test done and left the garage I noticed that the tester had forgotten to sign it! Unless, of course, the requirement to sign MOT certificates has now been dispensed with. Does anybody know whether this is the case, please?
|
A dealer can tax a car for you on his own insurance
If that is true why do dealers always insist on seeing covernote or cert with the New regn number before taxing?
p
{'>>' marks added to show that you're quoting from someone else's post}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 09/01/2009 at 10:23
|
The last time I taxed a car at a Post Office, I inadvertently took the old, expired MOT. They asked me if it had a current one, pressed a few keys to no doubt verify it and issued the tax disc.
I presume they can check the insurance as well.
|
You can also see if a car is insured.
www.askmid.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
