Bought a used car - gap in tax

bwatkins1

I bought a car at the end of March, two days before the tax ran out. I went to my local Post Office to try and tax the car but they told me to wait till the V5 comes through. The DVLA website also said I could only tax the car with a V5 or a reminder letter, neither of which I had.

I waited and waited and finally the V5 arrived today (10th May) five weeks after we sent the change of keeper document to the DVLA. I went straight online and bought tax for the car. I would have happily paid for the tax for April but it wouldn't let me. The only thing it let me do is buy tax for May and warned me that because there was a gap I may be fined.

What's the best thing to do now? Is there any point in me ringing the DVLA to try and pay for the missing month so they don't fine me? Or are they likely to not bother me given that their records will show I became the new keeper when the vehicle was taxed and the month gap was entirely due to them taking a month to process the change?

I suppose they will argue that I should have declared it SORN rather than doing nothing for the whole of April but I thought that would be a waste of time because I genuinely expected the V5 to arrive imminently and as soon as it did I would tax the vehicle at the post office and everything would be fine.

TadleyBaggie

You should have been given the "new keepers supplement" section of the V5C when you got the new car. With that you could have taxed the car at the Post Office.

matttye

Agreed with TadleyBaggie.

On the V5C there's a page titled V5C/3 (motor trader) or V5C/2 (individual) that you tear off and give to the new keeper when changing the registered keeper. You sent the rest of the V5C to the DVLA.

I've just transferred my old car to someone else in the same way.

AdrianC

bwatkins1 wrote: »

The DVLA website also said I could only tax the car with a V5 or a reminder letter, neither of which I had.

The DVLA website clearly and explicitly says you can use the new keeper supplement.
https://www.gov.uk/car-tax-disc-without-v11-reminder

arcon5

You're lucky you wasn't pulled over and had the car seized!

I don't see how you will get out of paying a fine for not taxing or SORNing a vehicle. I suppose you could have a claim against the post office for professional negligence in telling you what they did - but might be difficult proving what was said and by whom.