help! caught with no mot, dealer at fault

harveybobbles · 11 April 2015 at 9:42AM

AdrianC wrote: »

Absolutely. At the end of the day, it's every driver's legal responsibility to make sure the car they're driving is legal.

Indeed. A bit like all the weekly oil, water, tyre checks that people do..

bigjl · 11 April 2015 at 11:45AM

Garage is responsible for selling the car with the MOT issue

OP is responsible for driving the vehicle without an MOT.

I would expect the Garage to at least put a fresh MOT on it at their own cost.

straighttalker · 11 April 2015 at 12:19PM

Given that the selling garage aren't playing ball, the OP should just accept the charge of driving without an MOT and pay the likely £100 fine.

In the meantime, go and get the car MOT'd as a matter of urgency regardless as who is to blame or not.

If she wants to pursue the garage, issue a small claim for the cost of the new MOT and fine. However, given the seller is avoiding her, if they get judgment against them, if it's a limited company, they may just liquidate the existing company and trade from a different one to avoid the judgment. Also, if the OP claims for further works required to pass the MOT, te seller could successfully argue that the work developed in the intervening 6 month period.

Quentin · 11 April 2015 at 12:44PM

straighttalker wrote: »

..
...if they get judgment against them, if it's a limited company, they may just liquidate the existing company and trade from a different one to avoid the judgment.
.......

Very unlikely a company would go to the expense of liquidation and setting up a new company to avoid having to pay a judgement around £150!

dunroving · 11 April 2015 at 2:30PM

Slightly off-topic, but I recently bought a car from Arnold Clark that came with 9 months' MOT. I also paid them to tax the car for 12 months before I picked it up.

When I got home, I realised next day that with all the paperwork exchange, etc., I had not been provided with written confirmation of the MOT and tax.

As it happens, I then got online to check and both were correct/true (MOT done pre-Christmas, and 12 months tax paid for).

But it did get me thinking about (a) how easy it is for a consumer (especially one with limited experience of buying cars) to miss the fact that no evidence of tax and MOT had been provided, (b) I could easily have driven home with an MOT-less or tax-less car as a result of not checking the paperwork I was given, and (c) what is the responsibility of the trade seller to give you the MOT cert, and to give you written evidence of road tax being paid (especially now there is no tax disc)?

TBH, I do have some sympathy with the buyer in this case not realising that the MOT cert provided was for another car ... [puts crash helmet on] ...