Stolen car?

schoolrunmum

Does anyone know how I can check if a car we bought in the US and imported back to the UK may be stolen? I only ask as I went to DVLA local office yesterday armed with import forms,mot ,insurance etc and the application form to register the car back as a UK car, and they told me it had never been exported in the first place!
Now obviously it had,as we bought it in San Fransisco and shipped it back but DVLA records show it never left the UK therefore we cannot re-import it....does anyne think there is a chance it may have been nicked and exported illegally (therefore losing us dosh!) or is a more liklet scenario that it was just exported with paperwork/computers not updated properly..we are talking about 1983/84 here....was it all computerised then??
I have checked on several websites that offer this service, and they say no record of the reg number..although DVLA lady found it easily enough..Srm..

Rolandtheroadie

May just never have been officially exported. Apply for a v5 and see what happens.

JQ.

Get the DVLA to tell you the original UK reg No. and then run an HPi check based on that reg. Or I think you may be able to run an HPi based on the chassis number, but am not possitive about that. If you are HPi'ing make sure you do a proper one, not one of these cheap text ones.

PS - just out of interest what car is it?

schoolrunmum

Thats what DVLA suggested-treat as if we had bought it without a V5..we had a clue as to the original reg, as the old UK plate was in the boot! DVLA say that reg is still issued to the car so in theory we will get the old reg back,but first they have to allow 4 weeks to write to the previous UK reg owner to check he has actually sold it.....last known in 1984!! It's a Silver Shadow BTW...it's just worrying us it may have been exported "dodgily"..