Late licensing dispute - fined when I wasn't registered keeper!

TLJones

I'll try to keep this a concise as possible.

1. Bought a car in Aug '13 with 6 months tax, received the new owners slip (V5C2) and garage filled out the V5 to be sent to DVLA.
   
2. Never received the V5, stupidly didn't realise this at all for 6 months.
   
3. Come mid January I notice that I haven't had a reminder form, so try to find V5. Cannot find it, so grab new owners slip and take it to Post Office along with MOT cert and insurance
   
4. V5C2 new owners slip has been filled out incorrectly with the Garage's name and address, not mine. Post Office enquire with DVLA as to who the registered owner is, they state it is the garage. V5 never got to them
   
5. I cannot tax or SORN the car as I have no legal right to do so as I am not the registered keeper. I can however fill out a V62 New Owners form to have the car ownership transferred over to me, which will take 4-8 weeks to process at a cost of £25
   
6. Garage refuses to take responsibility for their actions, claiming that it was my responsibility to chase up not receiving V5. Although they are right and I should have been more dilligent, I am unable to do anything about it now. They refuse to SORN the car on my behalf.
   
7. V62 is completed and sent off. Car is moved to private car park at work, so is not on the public highway. Stays there until I receive my new V5 though March 26th and car is taxed 1st of April.
   
8. Receive a Late Lincensing Penalty from DVLA stating that I owe them £80 for not taxing car on 1/2/14, or £40 if I pay before 26th April. I write back stating that as I was not registered keeper of vehicle at that moment in time, I was unable to tax or SORN.
   
9. Receive another letter on the 30th of April, dated the 4th of April, acknowledging I could not relicense the tax, but still demanding £80 because I did not make a SORN.

To save myself a headache I would pay the £40 fine and be done with it, but I didn't receive letter until after the half price date.

How do you suggest I proceed? How can I dispute that I had no way at all to tax or SORN the car, when they dismiss me and say I'm still liable?

I have posted this here as well as the Parking Tickets, Fines and Parking section as I wasn't sure where to post this.

motorguy

TLJones wrote: »

I'll try to keep this a concise as possible.

1. Bought a car in Aug '13 with 6 months tax, received the new owners slip (V5C2) and garage filled out the V5 to be sent to DVLA.
   
2. Never received the V5, stupidly didn't realise this at all for 6 months.
   
3. Come mid January I notice that I haven't had a reminder form, so try to find V5. Cannot find it, so grab new owners slip and take it to Post Office along with MOT cert and insurance
   
4. V5C2 new owners slip has been filled out incorrectly with the Garage's name and address, not mine. Post Office enquire with DVLA as to who the registered owner is, they state it is the garage. V5 never got to them
   
5. I cannot tax or SORN the car as I have no legal right to do so as I am not the registered keeper. I can however fill out a V62 New Owners form to have the car ownership transferred over to me, which will take 4-8 weeks to process at a cost of £25
   
6. Garage refuses to take responsibility for their actions, claiming that it was my responsibility to chase up not receiving V5. Although they are right and I should have been more dilligent, I am unable to do anything about it now. They refuse to SORN the car on my behalf.
   
7. V62 is completed and sent off. Car is moved to private car park at work, so is not on the public highway. Stays there until I receive my new V5 though March 26th and car is taxed 1st of April.
   
8. Receive a Late Lincensing Penalty from DVLA stating that I owe them £80 for not taxing car on 1/2/14, or £40 if I pay before 26th April. I write back stating that as I was not registered keeper of vehicle at that moment in time, I was unable to tax or SORN.
   
9. Receive another letter on the 30th of April, dated the 4th of April, acknowledging I could not relicense the tax, but still demanding £80 because I did not make a SORN.

To save myself a headache I would pay the £40 fine and be done with it, but I didn't receive letter until after the half price date.

How do you suggest I proceed? How can I dispute that I had no way at all to tax or SORN the car, when they dismiss me and say I'm still liable?

I have posted this here as well as the Parking Tickets, Fines and Parking section as I wasn't sure where to post this.

You owned the car, you didnt ensure the paperwork was up to date. You had "no way at all to tax or SORN the car" because of your failure to notice you hadnt got a v5.

Pay the £40 fine and chalk it up to experience - i dont think you're going to win this one.

AdrianC

I'm with MotorGuy. Even if the garage do SORN the car, that SORN expires as soon as the keeper is changed to be you - and, since that was already underway, it'd be pointless in them doing so.

The fact the change of keeper was delayed so long is nobody's fault buy your own.

I wonder if bringing this kind of confusion to light earlier will be a side benefit of the non-transferability of VED that's coming in October with the death of the paper disc?

TLJones

AdrianC wrote: »

The fact the change of keeper was delayed so long is nobody's fault buy your own.

It was my fault, but the new owners slip wasn't made out in my name. If that was correct I could have taxed the car using that and put the V62 form in, having a taxed car that I could have used.

My issue is that although I was to blame for not being more dilligent with the V5 in the first place, I had no possible way to do anything because the garage failed to send off the V5 and failed to correctly fill out the new owners slip, and as such I don't feel like I should be responsible for the £80 fine.

AdrianC

TLJones wrote: »

I had no possible way to do anything because the garage failed to send off the V5

You should have contacted DVLA on not receiving a V5C in around a month.
https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration-certificate-v5c-log-book

and failed to correctly fill out the new owners slip

The error there was quite likely the person who passed the car to the garage - they should have just filled in the "motor trade" slip and sent that to DVLA, and left the "new keeper" slip blank.

Nothing stopping you writing your own details onto the slip and enclosing a covering letter.

nobbysn*ts

motorguy wrote: »

You owned the car, you didnt ensure the paperwork was up to date. You had "no way at all to tax or SORN the car" because of your failure to notice you hadnt got a v5.

Pay the £40 fine and chalk it up to experience - i dont think you're going to win this one.

Very, very, very, very clear on the V5C. The registered keeper is responsible, not the owner, who may not be the registered keeper as it states on the front. The garage was the registered keeper at the time, if the garage hadn't sent the change of keeper to the dvla. The only fly in the ointment is the op started the ball rolling in January, so the V5C will now show the change of keeper before the cutoff of the 1st of Feb. But the fault is with the garage for giving him an incorrectly filled in change of owner slip, and not sending off the V5C originally.

arcon5

I agree with above - this should be sent to the registered keeper ie the garage

Rover_Driver

A new keeper without a V5C can declare SORN by completing a form V890 and attaching it to the form V62.

Nebulous2

You can buy a VED disk and transfer registration at the same time using a v62. There is a charge if you don't have the v5c.

That would have been the way to go and then you could have tried to get the £25 back from the garage.

Rover_Driver

TLJones wrote: »

V62 is completed and sent off. Car is moved to private car park at work, so is not on the public highway. Stays there until I receive my new V5 though March 26th and car is taxed 1st of April.

When did you send the V62, is it the same as the date of change of keeper on the V5C?