Buying parent's car what order should I buy stuff in

edwardmluk

So I'm planning on picking up my Dad's car this Saturday. Thing is, if I try to order the tax online it claims I need to have valid insurance and then if I go to order insurance online it asks who the owner of the vehicle is. The current owner is my Dad, but that'll transfer to me. But if he sends off the V5 forms etc for my name/address then we can't use those to get the vehicle taxed.

* My guess would be, buy the insurance online and say I'm the owner.
* Then get parent's to get tax disc from post office.
* Finally, they send off the V5 with my details on it and the address change etc.

Sound alright?

edwardmluk

Rang the DVLA tax office. For those interested if you want to do something similar (pick up an untaxed car you don't own in a short time period) here's what you do:
* buy insurance on the car stating yourself as the owner. The insurance must cover the period you're taxing from.
* Get the full V5 document for the car with all yours and the owner's details filled out.
* Take a copy of your insurance, the filled out V5, the latest MOT certificate to a post office.
Then the Post office will issue you a tax disk there and then, and will send on the V5 to DVLA to get it updated to a new address and issue the new log book.

huckster

Must admit that when I have done this, it was all straightforward and I did not really have to think about it. As has been said the Post Office can handle/send on the forms for DVLA and provide the tax disc.

Some times having online facilities is very useful, but it can also complicate matters. I think at one time the government were going to stop the Post Offices dealing with car tax and forms on behalf of DVLA, with it all going online. Unless the online system is changed, this would be pretty daft and lead to a load of frustration.

vaio

in the old days you used to be able to tax a car and apply for a new V5 at the PO without having the V5, straightforward & easy but sadly it was stopped in some "crackdown" or other.

Buy an untaxed car with no V5 now and I think you need to visit one of the ever decreasing DVLA regional offices or wait x weeks for the new V5 to arrive, such is progress

System

edwardmluk wrote: »

* buy insurance on the car stating yourself as the owner. The insurance must cover the period you're taxing from..

If you tax a car part way through the month you have to pay for the full month. You can't backdate insurance to cover the same period, it can only start at the moment you take it out.

I thought when you bought a car you got a little tear-off strip from the V5 specially so that you could tax the car, even though the seller has sent the main V5 off to the DVLA? That's how it's worked for me, no real problem.

edwardmluk

@clifford. You're right, the tax covers from the month beginning onwards. I should probably reword to say make sure you have insurance on the car prior to going to get the tax disk, as that's one of the documents you'll need.

@huckster I agree. I'm very keen on online services, but making something like this online only would cause so much trouble and create massive waiting times. Unless the online process provided a legal temporary printable tax disk/V5.

paddedjohn

edwardmluk wrote: »

Rang the DVLA tax office. For those interested if you want to do something similar (pick up an untaxed car you don't own in a short time period) here's what you do:
* buy insurance on the car stating yourself as the owner. The insurance must cover the period you're taxing from.
* Get the full V5 document for the car with all yours and the owner's details filled out.
* Take a copy of your insurance, the filled out V5, the latest MOT certificate to a post office.
Then the Post office will issue you a tax disk there and then, and will send on the V5 to DVLA to get it updated to a new address and issue the new log book.

The person you spoke to at the DVLA has obviously not bought a car before, when you buy the car you wont normally have the filled out v5 to take to the post office, this must be returned to the DVLA by the seller. The new owner gets the small new keeper section which can be used to tax the car at the post office.;)