Car Tax bounced cheque misery!

ZanyZoo

Hello, would appreciate any advice please - we bought a second hand car from a listing on Gumtree two months ago. The seller agreed to have the car MOT'd and taxed for 6 months as part of the selling price. This he did in the morning of the day we bought it so we had a 12 month MOT certificate and a tax disc valid until 31/07/10 - nice.

However... we received a letter from the DVLA this week saying that the cheque used to pay the tax had been returned unpaid and asking for the full amount to be paid within 7 days or face a £1000+ fine!:(
Surely this is unfair! My points being:
- Is it not the fault of the Post Office where the car tax was purchased for not taking a cheque guarantee card or accepting a cheque without one?
- Why should it be us that pays? The car was nothing to do with us when the tax was purchased for it.
- Why has it taken 2 months for us to be notified of this? We would have more likely been able to contact the seller about this if we knew sooner.

Unfortunately we realise the DVLA will not care about who paid what and when and we will have to pay up if we want to keep the car on the road. We plan to try and contact the seller but no longer have a record of his mobile number. We have his name and address however but not holding our breath until we see any payment from him!:mad:
Does anyone have any advice or think this is worth taking to the Small Claims Court?

gazfocus

Do you have a receipt from the selling stating that the car was taxed? Even if the DVLA had notified you 2 months ago, they would have still requested immediate payment within 7 days.

neil9313

Post office dont need to take a cgc they just stop the car tax as you have found out. As its 6 months tax only maybe best just to take it on the chin.

ZanyZoo

I've got the tax disc stamped by the Post Office. Realise the DVLA would have requested immediate payment but at least I would have still had the mobile number of the seller on my phone!

ScottishSapper

Did you pay the seller for the Tax or was it just part of the deal? If you paid him, then I would try to pursue, via SmallClaims if necessary.

If it was part of the deal and you have nothing in writing then I think you have no hope.

I think you have to sort payment anyway ASP with DVLA as in theory you have been driving around in an untaxed car for 2 months! DVLA are also going to expect you to tax it from when you bought it

ZanyZoo

Thats all well and good for the PO to just stop the car tax if a cheque bounces but I still don't think its fair in our case when it wasn't our cheque that bounced! We bought the car with the tax disc in good faith. It may only be 6 months tax but is still £104.50 - may be worth taking to SMC??

mikey72

I'd ring the DVLA and ask can you buy the tax disc from now, as it wasn't you that committed the fraud, or at least from when you had ownership of the car.

ScottishSapper

We bought the car with the tax disc in good faith.

I think that in this case the DVLA would accept that in mitigation but only up till they informed you it is in fact untaxed.

All they are interested in is getting the cash for the tax