Court Summons for No Road Tax

Cynical_Sid

Okay, I was a bit of an idiot and forgot to renew my car tax. Mitigating circumstances are that the reminder went to my old address 3 weeks after we moved (DVLA confirmed they got change of address a couple of weeks after sending out reminder).

Anyway, car was clamped when out shopping so I had to pay £260 to get it unclamped and then went to buy new tax disc. Contacted DVLA and confessed, they charged me the arrears for the period it was untaxed and a fine of £80 for not taxing it and said that would be the end of it.

A few weeks later I received an "offence report" on which I had to fill in the details of what happened. I called the DVLA who said it was procedure so just fill it in. I now have a court summons to answer the charge for which the maximum penalty is £1000 plus legal costs.

This seems unnecessary and totally over the top considering I have already paid the back tax and a fine.

Anyone have any experience or advice?

HappyMJ

Well now that is strange. BTW what you paid was a penalty. It's an offer to deal with it out of court. Usually its either the penalty or the court appearance for a judge to issue a fine. You might have 2 different charges here. Taxing the vehicle late will incur an £80 penalty but using an untaxed car on a road is more serious and that is probably what the court summons is for. Normally the DVLA will not clamp cars in shopping centre car parks and certainly won't release it until either the car tax is paid or a deposit is paid. Was it clamped by a private parking company or by the DVLA?

Cynical_Sid

It was clamped by a private company but they were acting for the DVLA, not the shopping centre. I had to pay a deposit which was refunded when I proved I had taxed the vehicle.

I suspect you're right, they probably see them as separate issues but I'm not sure I agree: How can they charge a penalty for late tax and then a separate one for using the vehicle, would they issue a late payment penalty even if you weren't using the vehicle?

Also, what's the point in paying the back tax if I was going to get a fine of £1000 anyway, I may as well have not bothered!

maninthestreet

You can't be punished twice for the same offence. You have already paid the penalty charge that the DVLA required, so any court case would get thrown out of court.

Hammyman

You may not be getting charged twice. The penalty you've paid from DVLA may be for not taxing your car or declaring it SORN. The court summons may be for using an untaxed car on the public highway. The two are not the same.

Wig

Cynical_Sid wrote: »

I now have a court summons to answer the charge for which the maximum penalty is £1000 plus legal costs.

And what would that charge be?

It's difficult to know what has happened because they always hit you with 2 or 3 different things.

Section 6 of VERA gives the DVLA the power to offer an alleged offender a chance to settle the matter without any intervention from a court.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/22/section/6
6 Collection etc. of duty


Section 46 of VERA Requires information from the RK, failure carries a max £1000 fine. I believe you have satisfied this so it won't be this one

Duty to give information

(1)Where it is alleged that a vehicle has been used on a road in contravention of section 29, 34 , 37 or 43A

(a)the person keeping the vehicle shall give such information as he may be required to give in accordance with subsection (7) as to the identity of the driver of the vehicle or any person who used the vehicle, and

Section 29 Penalty for using or keeping unlicensed vehicle. is £1000 or 5 times VED

31A Offence by registered keeper where vehicle unlicensed
Penalty £1000 or 5 times VED

I believe you have settled on either 29 or 31A probably 29. And they are now taking you to court for 31A.

If you had been driving someone elses car, they use the 2 sections to get both you and the RK. It seems they also use both sections to go after the RK twice for effectively the same offence if it was the RK using the vehicle on the road.

It might be a good idea to ask DVLA what the fine you paid was for (which section) and ask for evidence of what was paid reciept etc to show the judge. And why they are now doing you for the other section...

Explain to judge that you are being hit twice for effectively the same offence.
P.S. you won't be fined £1000, it will be a lot less than that.

Cynical_Sid

When I spoke to the DVLA they said the £80 penalty that I paid was for not renewing my tax or declaring SORN which they said was a "continuous registration offence" but they didn't give an offence number.

The charge I have to go to court for is that I "kept a motor vehicle for which a licence was not in force, contrary to section 29(1) of the Vehicle and Excise Registration Act 1994"

Now these seem like the same thing to me although they did say on the phone it was a separate offence.

I didn't get a receipt for payment of the original penalty (they are not denying having received it), I will try and get one before the court date.

I suspect it is a losing battle; the guy I spoke to thought the fine would be about £200, so maybe it's not worth trying to argue a technicality with them.

Hammyman

They are not the same thing. They are two separate offences with the boundary muddied somewhat since the tightening up of the requirement to declare SORN or tax.

Rover_Driver

The £80 will be the Late Licensing Penalty - s.7A, Vehicle Excise & Registration Act 1994, it is treated as a civil debt and is a supplement payable for not renewing the licence on expiry of the old one.

The summons is for the criminal matter of not having a licence at the relevant time.

As has been said, two different things.

Wig

OP Sid,
I just re-read your OP you paid £260 for clamp removal I think you get about £100 of that refunded when you show them your new tax disc, did you get the refund?

You also paid £80 SORN/tax supplementary payment Section 7A

You also paid them for the missing tax - How many months was this? Just curious. How much? And how did they demand for this, at the clamping unit or by letter?

What they sometimes do is offer an out of court settlement for a S29 offence, with you they have not done this and have gone straight for court action.

I believe all of this has nothing to do with S31A and you will hear nothing about a S31A offence.

In court, DVLA will recover on top of any fine, costs in the region of £50 There will also be a victim surcharge I believe £15 or £20

If you show the court that you have already paid for the missing tax and paid the S 7A supplement.... hopefully they will be as lenient as possible. Like I said earlier nowhere near £1000.

What I said earlier about the same offence was in relation to S29 & S31A, and you can ignore that, because whilst they ARE virtually the same offence you are not being charged with both of those.