DVLA £465 fine for sorn car?

konark

If the car impounded was on cloned plates it would be very difficult for anyone to reclaim it without paying out thousands of pounds in Tax, Insurance and release fees.

'Are you the registered keeper sir?'
err yes
'Driving Licence, and V5, please'
err sorry

Why would anyone want to clone the plates of a sorned car? It will get pinged on every ANPR.

Not only will the council have good pictures of the impounded car they will also have whoever released it on CCTV. If it goes to court, (which it won't as DVLA know they are totally inept), they will have to prove 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the car was yours. I also take it that you live nowhere near Swansea so that automatically the magistrate will be sceptical.

Pete531

Your right, nowhere near Swansea, we are in Manchester actually. I thought at first maybe because the car was still taxed till the end of September then it would work for them, but after we Sorn'ed the car they got caught out.
Im feeling at lot less stressed now we have pieced most of this together, and if we do end up in court then Ive no doubt we would win, but the stress has been terrible and unnecessary, a simple chat with the right person at the DVLA should have put an end to this.

usefulmale

Pete531 wrote: »

Your right, nowhere near Swansea, we are in Manchester actually. I thought at first maybe because the car was still taxed till the end of September then it would work for them, but after we Sorn'ed the car they got caught out.
Im feeling at lot less stressed now we have pieced most of this together, and if we do end up in court then Ive no doubt we would win, but the stress has been terrible and unnecessary, a simple chat with the right person at the DVLA should have put an end to this.

Unless you take the back roads, your sons car should show up on ANPR cameras on the journey from Manchester to Swansea. Put a request to the police for that day and make them work for you, for a change.

AlanCarter

usefulmale wrote: »

Unless you take the back roads, your sons car should show up on ANPR cameras on the journey from Manchester to Swansea. Put a request to the police for that day and make them work for you, for a change.

If the cloned cars been caught on anpr it will show usage. So it will have cost him money to not strengthen his case.

WellKnownSid

konark wrote: »

If the car impounded was on cloned plates it would be very difficult for anyone to reclaim it without paying out thousands of pounds in Tax, Insurance and release fees.

I'm not so sure. It sounds like someone has, and at the end of the day people make mistakes.

Can't give any details but I was a witness in an incident with a cloned car recently, and it wasn't picked up by the police until after they'd let the vehicle go. Red faces all round - they queried my description of the vehicle which didn't match the DVLA records - until I pulled out my phone and showed them a picture... of the vehicle which clearly matched my description but not their records...

I subsequently Googled the reg number and found an advert for a car (which did match the DVLA records) 500 miles away.

GingerBob_3

usefulmale wrote: »

Unless you take the back roads, your sons car should show up on ANPR cameras on the journey from Manchester to Swansea. Put a request to the police for that day and make them work for you, for a change.

Yes, the police now have a massive, tax-payer-funded surveillance network to monitor the movements of all law abiding citizens on the road. This is due to the fact that we live in a police state. However, try getting the information from them as suggested. I have no experience of doing so, but I would bet a truck load of money that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to do so.

Pete531

I think those cameras only come into play for very serious crimes.
Phoned DVLA this morning on a number that got me through to some decent people.
0300 790 6802, option 1, then 4, then 3.
They listened! They put me through to a guy who is a case manager in the wheel clamping dept. They have no record of this reg no. No action has been taken according to his information, very odd.
But he's going to do some digging around and was going to look at my letter I sent. Something isn't right here at all.
We've managed to tie all the dates and milage together now,
From the last Mot we had on 6/3/15 the car has covered 816 miles, it was used as normal up until the end of May. From the 1st June he has only used the other car.
How I wish he had sold it then, but was holding on for a better offer.

Ant555

£465 sounds like a very arbitrary figure for a SORN as it hasn't been to court yet, especially as you say it is not related to any impound or release fees - is this a scam letter?

From the DVLA
you’ll automatically be fined £80 for not having a SORN. There’s also a fine for having an uninsured vehicle.

The fine of up to £2500 is levvied by the courts so I am surprised that they are asking you for £465 in the initial contact letter.

Rover_Driver

Ant555 wrote: »

£465 sounds like a very arbitrary figure for a SORN as it hasn't been to court yet, especially as you say it is not related to any impound or release fees - is this a scam letter?

It will be an out of court settlement offer for the offence of having an unlicensed vehicle, the amount reflects the higher penalty for the vehicle being on the public road whilst SORN.

Ant555

Ah, so its an £80 fine if you do not let them know about a SORN status and then higher if they think you have not 'de-sorned' through the correct channels.

Thanks