Who does my numberplate belong to??

gingergirl21

About two years ago I sold my personal numberplate on ebay to a private individual who bought it for his 12 year old daughter (for when she was 17). I filled in all the correct forms, he signed his bit, and everything got sent to DVLA. However because he did not assign it to a new vehicle I got a letter asking me to pay £25 last year to retain it. I contacted the buyer who sent me a cheque and all was well. I have now had the same letter again a year on, and am having great trouble contacting the buyer.

Obviously I don't want DVLA to own the plate (which they will if I don't pay for retention), however I equally don't want to be paying £25 every year when this guy supposedly owns the plate. As far as I am concerned the responsibility passed from me to the buyer when he bought the plate, however the DVLA obviously just make these things difficult. There is nothing on their website dealing with this and before I phoned them I thought I'd see if anyone had the answr on here.

Furthermore, annoyingly the DVLA will only accept cheques or postal orders and as I have a "green account" with no chequebook, I will have to pay a further £2.50 for a postal order if I end up paying the fee myself in order for the plate to be retained.

If I pay the retention and change the nominee back to me, then presumably I own the plate again - however if I sell it again then have I in fact "stolen" from this guy. I work in the legal sector and so any complaint against me for something like this could be incredibly serious!

Any help would be welcome.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

It isn't your plate, so ignore anything the DVLA send you. His plate, his problem.

gingergirl21

Why are they sending stuff to me and not him?

kalaika

Is he still on eBay? If so, have you tried seeing if you can request his details from there to phone/contact him? Have you told DVLA that you sold it to him and that they should be requesting the cash from him, not you?

I think if you've made reasonable attempts to contact him to tell him and let DVLA know then as it's not your plate any more it should be up to him to worrry about it. If he doesn't pay the £25 then he loses the retention and that's his loss.

Sandoval

It belongs to me!

gingergirl21

kalaika wrote: »

Is he still on eBay? If so, have you tried seeing if you can request his details from there to phone/contact him? Have you told DVLA that you sold it to him and that they should be requesting the cash from him, not you?

I think if you've made reasonable attempts to contact him to tell him and let DVLA know then as it's not your plate any more it should be up to him to worrry about it. If he doesn't pay the £25 then he loses the retention and that's his loss.

I have his email address, home address and phone number and have attempted contacting him on all three. Mobile went straight to voicemail and so left a message.

Gordon_Hose

That's all you can do then. I wouldn't be paying £25 every year.

flutterbyuk25

Officially the plate belongs to the Secretary of State for Transport. When you purchase a 'plate' you purchase the right to display it not the actual plate itself.

OP - Because you are the grantee not the nominee the renewal form will come to you. It will remain in your name until it goes onto a vehicle in someone else's name. If you choose not to renew then the entitlement to the plate will lapse but when I worked at DVLA they were happy to renew ones that were 10 years out of date as long as they got the money for the missing years!

HTH

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