Car uninsured for 1.5 weeks, can it be parked on road outside house?

uva33188

For money saving reasons I do not want to renew the insurance on my car upon expiry. If I wait 1.5 weeks the insurance cost goes down by £400. I understand that leaving the car uninsured is not strictly legal. Let me be clear, I do not intend to drive the car uninsured at any time. However I do wish to make the £400 saving.

1.5 weeks uninsured is all I need. Car has valid MOT and road tax.

So I am asking, if I leave the car parked at its usual place, street outside my house, will it be spotted as uninsured and with what consequences?

Alternatively, If I park it on the private parking space of a pub down the road (with the owners permission), will it be spotted as uninsured?

How would they know if it is uninsured or insured?

Police patrol cars do quite occasionally drive down the road as the police station is near by.

Information regarding this matter would be useful. Thanks.

NeverEnough

You need to SORN the car if intending to not insure it - it then needs to be parked up on private land and not just on a road as that would not be legal. It is inadvisable to leave it uninsured, obviously , although it might not show up on the MID database right away, not a chance worth taking IMO.

molerat

Your car must be insured and taxed or SORNed whether kept on the road or not. If parked on a public highway there is the possibility that it will ping a passing ANPR equipped police car risking towing. The automatic systems at DVLA will pick up on it not complying with the legislation and will possibly send a penalty in the post no matter where the vehicle is parked.

uva33188

OK I am not keeping it on the road.

Is 1.5 weeks enough time to bother with SORN?

Okay if I have to SORN it then,

1. How do I SORN it, is this complicated?
2. The tax disc was purchased by the dealer who sold me the vehicle. It is taxed until March 2015. Will the balance tax be refunded to me (owner/keeper) or the dealer?
3. After 1.5 weeks how do I go about un-SORNing it? Will it need MOT again? Or can I just buy a new tax disc and insurance.
4. Do I need to tell the new insurer that the vehicle is currently/has ever been SORNed.

Thanks.

trollopscarletwoman

Anyone got a garage free for a week or so's rent?

windup

why does the cost go down in 1.5 weeks

stator

My advice is to take out a temporary insurance policy, it would make things less complicated. A company called eCarInsurance would let you take out insurance they call PAYG car insurance and cancel it after one month or any other number of months. The only issue is that you have to scan your driving licence and NCD and e-mail it to them and make sure you chase them up to confirm they got it otherwise they will cancel the policy. There is some quite bad feedback on this forum and others about people who got their policies cancelled. I did use them once when I wanted to delay my insurance renewal for a few months.

Buzby

eCar short term insurance is finished, they sold up and a different company took over the website, many products were dropped.

stator

Buzby wrote: »

eCar short term insurance is finished, they sold up and a different company took over the website, many products were dropped.

Oh dear, I did check their website but obviously didn't try to get a quote. How disappointing.

There are plenty of other temporary car insurers for up to 1 month, so I would go with them. But you'd want to print off a copy of the insurance certificate and keep it with you because not all of them update the MIB database with policy details so the police etc wouldn't be able to automatically see your policy and might think you are uninsured.

specialboy

SORN online in 30 seconds, refund for unused months of the tax comes back to registered keeper of the vehicle, when you relax the car it automatically becomes unsorned

uva33188

Thank you all for your replies. Due to magic and waiting 3 days to renew insurance after cancellation, the premiums went down considerably when I re-did the quotes yesterday.

I can only call it the 2015 effect. The car is insured again and I'm back on the road. I for one cannot get my head around how car insurance premium calculation works in England.

And I'm going to get a Baby Oleg cuddly toy to help me forget this nightmare.

:beer: