Fine for not renewing road tax

molerat

No there two offences.

One is failing to keep the registration current by either taxing it or declaring SORN, which was spotted by the computer.

The second is keeping an untaxed vehicle on the road which was spotted by the CO.

Wig

flutterbyuk25 wrote: »

Sorry but some of what you have written is slightly incorrect. This is how it goes:

DVLA have no legal obligation to send a reminder (V11) form, it's the registered keeper's (RK) responsibilty to renew their tax on time.

The RK has 14 days to renew the road tax after the expiry date before any fines may be issued. During this time the vehicle MUST be kept off road.

No warning letter is issued after 14 days.

The £80 fines are issued 2 months after the expiry date - reduced to £40 if paid by set date, £80 after. Also requests payment of arrears for 2 months of missing tax.

You are right about that fact that if it's seen on the road untaxed that it could be clamped/fined/towed/impounded by either DVLA, Police, Local Authority or Traffic Warden. It also may invalidate your insurance if you were to have an accident whilst untaxed.

If your tax expired 31 Oct and you renew in anytime in Oct and car was off road whilst untaxed then no fine is issued. If were to renew in Nov and sent payment of missing month to DVLA then no fine is issued.

Tax discs cannot be backdated any longer you can only buy one for current month.

Hope this clears things up a bit!

Sorry but some of what you have written is slightly incorrect. This is how it goes:

Tax disc expires, no warning letters are sent (there is sometimes a reminder before expiry but not guaranteed - after expiry nothing.), you have all of the month after expiry to pay for a new disc, not just 14 days.

The database is checked the beginning of every month for vehicles with a 1 month unauthorised tax gap, then fines are issued to those vehicles.

"If your tax expired 31 Oct and you renew in anytime in Oct and car was off road whilst untaxed then no fine is issued"

- because there is no tax break and your car would not need to be off the road because it was taxed for October.

"If were to renew in Nov and sent payment of missing month to DVLA then no fine is issued."

If you renewed in November the tax disc is started from the 1st Nov so there is no need to send any additional payment.


However it appears you were using the incorrect dates for your example, it appears you meant to say If you were to renew in Dec...and sent payment of missing month... no fine would be issued. Not as far as I am aware. If you go one full month out of tax you will get a fine. There is no facility to repay the missing month.

kk102

Hi,

thanks for the info. tax ran out end of feb, missed march got fine for not declaring SORN and tax for that month because it wasnt delaired SORN so as far as they're concerned it was still on te road. Maybe it was just fine and no tax can't quite remember. Got tax in April after it was spotted by CO. tax got in april dated from the first of that month.

I know its owners responsibility to remember tax but isnt it their responsibility to notify you if you have a fne to give yo a chance to pay it. As far as we knew they did this and we paid, end of. they cant take you straight to court without notifying you of monies owed before hand and giving you the chance to appeal or pay can they? they did notify him of the tax offence automaticaly from their database and he paid but no notification was sent to say there was a second offence supposedly. just a letter for court hearing for not paying the second offence which we didnt realise had happened as we purchased tax for april. don't think that legal is it? for the 'second offence' i mean???

I suppose the question is can they fine you every month that you dont declair SORN or haven't got tax? From what WIG says we shouldn't have to pay what they say in April.

kk102

we did what WIG said and paid for the missing month and paid the fine and got tax from the first of the next month but not bought at the first of the next month. because CO saw car before we got money to get it they re trying to fine my parter again. We have the tax disc to prove he paid tax for april so can they still fine him from when the CO saw the car also in april before tax was bought?????

dopester

Count yourself lucky that you just got a fine.

Check this out.

mmuuzzyy_-_of_ukmkiv_forums wrote:

The Dvla / Vehicle taxation section are renting a plot of land to store untaxed vehicles on my site at work. There are a broad range of the cars/motorbikes that are turning up and then a week or so later being taken away buy a waste disposal lorry.
70% of the cars are bangers and about 30% New/Sporty motors (mercs/audi's/Bmw's/Vw's etc). A few weeks back, i watched a 54 plate saab convertible picked up with metal jaws and dumped onto the back of the disposal lorry.

Can members of the public buy these motors ?...... it seems such a waste !

mmuuzzyy_-_of_ukmkiv_forums wrote:

Following on from my last post, here's a pic of the cars they have in at the yard today... it is deffinatley a DVLA untaxed yard. The land lays between the site i work on and another site. It used to be where the old railway line went. The DVLA rent the land from the landlord... and yes it has 24hour security guards and very big thick gates...

mmuuzzyy_-_of_ukmkiv_forums wrote:

in the pics you can see the following cars:
Merc s class x2
Newish audi A4
Audi TT
Landrover Discover x2
Jag
Bmw X5
Freelander
Volvo 4x4
Merc 4x4
Audi A4 cabriolet x3
And a lots of other sub 5k cars

source: http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/thread/937661.aspx

Hi btw. I've been a lurker for a while but finally got around to signing up. I've read the forum rules and couldn't see anything about posting up larger pics breaking any rules.

For the record I don't normally post up large pics but thought these are an eye-opener on how costly it could be if you don't report your vehicle as SORN, or "forget" to have valid road-tax your car whilst using the public highways.

I'd be willing to bet that some of the owners of the cars in that DVLA yard made attempts at recovering their cars before they got dismantled / sent to the breakers.

taxiphil

Hi dopester, welcome and thanks for posting those pics.

Interesting stuff. It's utter madness that they're crushing modern valuable cars. If they're effectively the property of the DVLA then why can't they be auctioned off to raise money which could be spent on repairing potholed roads, for example? I can only assume it's done for the "shock factor" by the army of vindictive little weasels tucked away in the DVLA's offices who are a law unto themselves.

Wig

kk102 wrote: »

Hi,

thanks for the info. tax ran out end of feb, missed march got fine for not declaring SORN and tax for that month because it wasnt delaired SORN so as far as they're concerned it was still on te road. Maybe it was just fine and no tax can't quite remember. Got tax in April after it was spotted by CO. tax got in april dated from the first of that month.

I know its owners responsibility to remember tax but isnt it their responsibility to notify you if you have a fne to give yo a chance to pay it. As far as we knew they did this and we paid, end of. they cant take you straight to court without notifying you of monies owed before hand and giving you the chance to appeal or pay can they? they did notify him of the tax offence automaticaly from their database and he paid but no notification was sent to say there was a second offence supposedly. just a letter for court hearing for not paying the second offence which we didnt realise had happened as we purchased tax for april. don't think that legal is it? for the 'second offence' i mean???

I suppose the question is can they fine you every month that you dont declair SORN or haven't got tax? From what WIG says we shouldn't have to pay what they say in April.

Who is CO? Council?

I suspect this is what happened. You did not tax car, you kept it on the highway untaxed.

You then got spotted by council, they sent you a letter? What did you reply to letter? Presumably you said you want to keep car and will tax it...yes?

You then taxed car in April.

(what happens at this point, unknown to you, is that council informs DVLA of a sighting untaxed vehicle on highway), Now DVLA have evidence of the vehicle being used, so they start seperate proceedings for that, ontop of and in addition to the automatict £80/£40 penalty.

You then recieved court papers....from who? DVLA?

DVLA should have sent you a letter demanding payment of £80 with an option of £40 early payment. This fine is for forgetting to renew the tax. And DVLA will send a seperate letter demanding money for an out of court settlement pertaining to the use of the vehicle whilst untaxed.

Have you still got the original paperwork from DVLA, is there anything on there about a second fine to be paid?

If you phone 020 8302 9331 and have the registration number of the vehicle to quote you might be able to get this court paper situation sorted.

Let us know what they say. About the two seperate fines, and about the fact you were not sent a letter offering a £40 early payment.

dopester

Thanks for the welcome taxiphil - I thought I'd joined ages ago but realised I hadn't registered to post, so finally a member.

The more I think about it, the more I think the Government/DVLA's policy is pretty fair.

In circumstances of unpaid fines, seizing private property, but then also being able to profit from the sale of that private property, is fraught with difficulties, and leaves Government open to accusations of profiteering and abuse of position (even if we all know it would be a logical way to cut back on taxes we pay and running of the system). I guess some of the seized cars might also be there for having no valid car insurance.

Also Gov would have to ensure, either themselves or via 3rd party, all cars were roadworthy if selling them on. A new class of insurance (Cat) would probably have to come in if allowing seized cars to be sold on.

There's something clean and clinical about just crushing offenders cars, bangers or not - without overtly properting. No car tax, no fine payment received, car crushed or sent to breakers. Clinical and fair.

Check out this DVLA video (YouTube link) which was part of a recent DVLA warning campaign... they do have the power to crush any vehicle which is without road tax. There was another video which was even harder hitting but I can't find it online. For I would have like to see them use an expensive performance car in the video, but I suspect no manufacturer would give them permission to use their vehicles in such a way for fear of association of their marque... and so they've had to use a non-indentifiable model vehicle.

The DVLA won against an ASA invesigation that these warning campaigns were "threatening". Also new legislation is apparently in the works to seize cars which aren't SORN but are on private property.

Wig is right as far as I can tell - you get fine letters first of £80 (and maybe 50% less if you pay early), but they can and do crush cars if it's not sorted out.

BigSaver_2

Hi,

How many days before your road tax expires can you renew it?

Thanks

Wig

BigSaver wrote: »

Hi,

How many days before your road tax expires can you renew it?

Thanks

If there is no gap of cover 15 days early, if there has been a gap in cover - official SORN declared, and you are atarting anew, 5 days.