Question regarding taxing car before policy docs arrive

bungle82

I hope this is in the correct place to ask a question re: insurance...

I'm posting this for my sister who is collecting her first car tomorrow. She's very excited but has run into a problem I don't know the answer to and am hoping someone can help.

She has set up her insurance online with Admiral this evening, to run from tomorrow morning (before she collects the car). However despite having an email confirmation of the policy number she won't have the poilicy documents until they arrive in the post which according to Admiral will be "a few days", but could be more with the postal strike. They don't appear to email a policy document or cover note in the same way that Swift Cover (who I have dealt with before) do.

The problem is that the car will need taxing tomorrow as soon as she buys it (as the tax expired yesterday with the current owner), and the post office will require the policy documents to tax the car...

Have had a look on the DVLA website and they just suggest keeping the car on a driveway until the insurance documents arrive and the car can be taxed, but she doesn't have a driveway! So if she just parked it outside her house for 2-3 days, she would be risking a huge fine.

Has anyone had any experience of this or can offer any advice? It seems madness to me that she wants to do everything right but could be prevented from doing so by our unreliable postal system!

Thanks in advance for any replies!

lindsaygalaxy

Please check with the car tax people, but I once forgot to get my tax on the day it ran out and they said not to worry you have a week to get it in.

KeithP

bungle82 wrote: »

It seems madness to me that she wants to do everything right but could be prevented from doing so by our unreliable postal system!

Well it seems you know the right thing to do...
Keep the car off the road until it is taxed.

Could your sister avoid collecting the car until it is legal for her to do so?

Maybe she could arrange for the vendor to go to the Post Office and get some tax using his insurance certificate?

Someone will be along in a minute to tell you (and me) how that idea is illegal, but we already know that don't we.

angeltreats

Is she buying from a dealer? We have just bought a used car from a dealer that was untaxed. The dealer was happy to sort out the tax for us (at our expense of course) before we picked the car up and the paperwork was sorted out.

bungle82

All sorted. The post office are accepting faxed copies of car insurance docs at moment due to the postal strikes, so she got the insurance company to fax the docs to her, and took that to the post office to tax the car.

Thanks.