SORN fine!!!

euanT

Had my daughters car SORN'ed since Feb 15 as the turbo blew, finally fixed two weeks ago(car in garage) She re taxed the car online on the 10/10/15 at 16.45pm confirmation e mail recieved and printed. This morning she recieved a letter form DLVA stating the car was seen driving whilst SORN'ed and a £435 fine is due within 28 days, Now the time of the "incident" was at 19.56 on 10/10/15, so that was obviously on the way home from the garage!!!!
DVLA say we will have to "appeal" the fine by mail, surely it should be cancelled as it is a mistake on their part!!!!!

HappyMJ

euanT wrote: »

Had my daughters car SORN'ed since Feb 15 as the turbo blew, finally fixed two weeks ago(car in garage) She re taxed the car online on the 10/10/15 at 16.45pm confirmation e mail recieved and printed. This morning she recieved a letter form DLVA stating the car was seen driving whilst SORN'ed and a £435 fine is due within 28 days, Now the time of the "incident" was at 19.56 on 10/10/15, so that was obviously on the way home from the garage!!!!
DVLA say we will have to "appeal" the fine by mail, surely it should be cancelled as it is a mistake on their part!!!!!

It should be. Don't worry too much about it just send your evidence in and it should be withdrawn. If not don't ever be pressured into paying it. Let them take you to court where you can present your case to a magistrate.

euanT

Thats what I thought, if they dont play ball, I said to her to ignore it and let them waste their(our) money!!!!

Le_Kirk

Don't ignore it, respond as per post #2.

HappyMJ

euanT wrote: »

Thats what I thought, if they dont play ball, I said to her to ignore it and let them waste their(our) money!!!!

Did I say ignore. I didn't mean to imply that if it came across like that. You must engage with them. You've got to send your letter and evidence. They might refuse it you've then got to send a letter back saying you refuse to pay what at the moment is just a penalty and you wish the matter to be taken to court. At court you present your evidence again and a magistrate will decide. If what you say is true then the case will be dismissed and you owe nothing. It will cost you money to go to court (bus/train fare or petrol and parking) so try and get it resolved before then. They will pressurize you to pay the penalty before the court date so as long as you are adamant you are right don't ever pay it even if the penalty doubles or triples.

euanT

I will not ignore it, yet! letter with copy e mail will be sent recorded delivery ASAP, and see what happens!!

RussHub

As soon as they receive your letter your case will be frozen for investigation and cannot escalate into higher fines! When they see the application confirmation and refer to the capture time they should account for each other and hopefully your case withdrawn. Just keep and print of your DVLA confirmation for piece of mind

s_b

Ring them once its been confirmed they have received your recorded letter as these letters are recorded yet sometimes they still dont go to the appropiate department.
For anyone else reading this, this is why you must do a screenshot if you tax or sorn online and obviously print a receipt off i always recommend like belt and braces.
I got a letter saying car unsorned this year but dvla admitted it was a fault on their side i had done it online so had the identification number thankfully
Leave nothing to chance and they like the easy option of blaming the customer at every turn

Finally remember never buy a car and chance it home untaxed as anpr cameras are where you would least expect them

patman99

The last time I had to SORN a vehicle for a short time and then re-tax it, the payments screen mentioned that it was a good idea to print off and carry a copy of the receipt for 3 days.

enfield_freddy

any chance that the car was MOTed at the garage , or had it recently been MOTed


" She re taxed the car online on the 10/10/15 at 16.45pm confirmation e mail recieved and printed. This morning she recieved a letter form DLVA stating the car was seen driving whilst SORN'ed and a £435 fine is due within 28 days, Now the time of the "incident" was at 19.56 on 10/10/15,


according to that statement
taxed the car online on the 10/10/15 at 16.45pm
"incident" was at 19.56 on 10/10/15,


the incident was AFTER she taxed it, so the car was taxed , but there system was slow in updating

droopsnoot

Precisely that - it takes a short time for these things to propagate (for some reason), and that's obviously less time than it takes for the ANPR cameras to do their checking. Present your receipt email showing the time and all should be fine.


I renewed SORN on my car a few years back, at a Post Office. A few weeks later I got a fine (£25!) for not doing so, sent them a copy of the receipt showing I had done, and the fine was cancelled. Grudgingly, I might add - the letter said "We can confirm we will take no further action on this matter", rather than the "Sorry, we made a mistake" that I would have preferred.