Transporting a SORN car with no MOT

Joe_Horner

foxy-stoat wrote: »

I would think that a few things need to of happened in order for the seller to be sucessfully prosecuted;

Car is unroadworthy,
Seller needed to know that it was or was reasonable to assume that it was,
The buyer had a serious accident on the way home and someone was injuried,
Component fault was a factor in the accident,
VOSA/Trading Standards are informed and
VOSA/Trading Standards are bothered to bring a prosecution to court
Seller cannot mount a good enough defense
Judge has a bad day and possibly bought a rubbish secondhand banger in the past and wants to make an example of the seller and finds them guilty

Yes, you'd think that would be reasonable but it's not how the law's been written.

The s.75 offence is strict liability, so it doesn't matter if you know the car's unroadworthy or not - you could even genuinely believe it to be roadworthy and commit the offence.

Say, for example, you take your car in for an MOT and it passes with no advisories. When you get home you curb one of the tyres and, overnight, a bulge appears that you don't notice. A few days later someone answers the ad you'd placed in Autotrader and buys the car. Congratulations! You've just committed an offence by selling it when it was unroadworthy because of a defective tyre.

The only way to be found not guilty if you're charged with a strict liability offence is to use one of the statutory defences (if there are any) included in the relevant law. So, for example, if you're stopped with no insurance it doesn't matter that you genuinely believed your insurance to be in place - guilty as charged. If you're driving a work vehicle as part of your employment and you believed it was insured by your employer then you're not guilty because the RTA allows that defence. But, apart from that one stated exception, if you drive uninsured you're breaking the law.

Most people don't have a problem understanding that when it comes to insurance but do seem to have difficulties when it applies to other things that they might see as less serious - or even downright stupid.

Selling an unroadworthy vehicle is one such case. If you sell a car that's not roadworthy then you are breaking the law regardless of intent unless you can raise the one available defence that you reasonably believed it wasn't going to be driven on the road before it was fixed. That may be idiotic, unreasonable, or just downright unfair, but it's how it is.

So, all you'd need for a successful prosecution is to:

(1) sell an unroadworthy car without good reason to think it wasn't going to be driven

(2) for someone, for whatever reason, decide to charge you.

That's it, Guilty m'lud.

At that point it doesn't matter if the magistrate had the best night of his life last night and woke up with Her Majesty's corgis beside him in bed and Pippa Middleton cooking a full English in the kitchen - he'll find you guilty because the law says he has to.

None of that has anything to do with the chance of getting charged because that's an entirely different thing. Lots and lots of people drink drive and get away with it, but if someone asked what the implication would be if they did it you'd be giving them very bad advice indeed to say "it's fine if you don't get caught"!

Dan83

You can drive a car (to a mot station) with no mot, you can't tax a car with out not, so I'm guessing, as long as he is going straight to s garage, he will be fine

George_Michael

Dan83 wrote: »

You can drive a car (to a mot station) with no mot, you can't tax a car with out not, so I'm guessing, as long as he is going straight to s garage, he will be fine

Yes, you can drive to a garage without a valid MOT provided that you have a pre-booked MOT appointment but you can still be prosecuted if the car is unroadworthy whilst on the way to the garage.

foxy-stoat

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Say, for example, you take your car in for an MOT and it passes with no advisories. When you get home you curb one of the tyres and, overnight, a bulge appears that you don't notice. A few days later someone answers the ad you'd placed in Autotrader and buys the car. Congratulations! You've just committed an offence by selling it when it was unroadworthy because of a defective tyre.

The only way to be found not guilty if you're charged with a strict liability offence is to use one of the statutory defences (if there are any) included in the relevant law. So, for example, if you're stopped with no insurance it doesn't matter that you genuinely believed your insurance to be in place - guilty as charged. If you're driving a work vehicle as part of your employment and you believed it was insured by your employer then you're not guilty because the RTA allows that defence. But, apart from that one stated exception, if you drive uninsured you're breaking the law.

Most people don't have a problem understanding that when it comes to insurance but do seem to have difficulties when it applies to other things that they might see as less serious - or even downright stupid.

Selling an unroadworthy vehicle is one such case. If you sell a car that's not roadworthy then you are breaking the law regardless of intent unless you can raise the one available defence that you reasonably believed it wasn't going to be driven on the road before it was fixed. That may be idiotic, unreasonable, or just downright unfair, but it's how it is.

So, all you'd need for a successful prosecution is to:

(1) sell an unroadworthy car without good reason to think it wasn't going to be driven

(2) for someone, for whatever reason, decide to charge you.

That's it, Guilty m'lud.

At that point it doesn't matter if the magistrate had the best night of his life last night and woke up with Her Majesty's corgis beside him in bed and Pippa Middleton cooking a full English in the kitchen - he'll find you guilty because the law says he has to.

He has to if there was enough evidence.

To take your example - for the circumstances to proceed from point 1 to point 2 would be that the buyer would have to notice the bulge and be able to prove that it was there at the point of sale, so they would either complain to the seller before driving off and say they will get the police or VOSA to prosecute the seller if they didnt buy them a new tyre. The seller would either say, whatever and buy them a £40 tyre or tell them to buy another car, if they complained after they drove off the seller would say prove it was there at the point of sale. If the buyer knew there was a bulge and drove it home anyway then they would be committing an offence too, if the buyer drove it home and then noticed the bulge how could he prove it was there at the point of sale? Either way the buyer HAS committed an offence and the seller MAY of committed an offence.

For this to end up in court the buyer would have to go to the police and the police would have to make a judgement if they would be able to secure a conviction - they would probably not bother due to the lack of evidence. Even if the buyer pressurised them to take the seller to court, the buyer would still be guilty of driving with a defective tyre, 3 points and a fine and he still would have to buy a new tyre with no certainty of securing a conviction against the seller. If successfully then the seller may be asked to buy a new £40 tyre, the buyer would still be guilty.

So the judge would need some sort of evidence to find the seller guilty, if there was none and how could there be unless the seller took photos of the bulge and put them in the advert.....if it was me I would of expected a reasonable person to check the tyre condition when buying a secondhand car from a private seller - so if the seller noticed the tyre they shouldnt of driven it home - if the seller didnt notice then I would assume that the bulge occured on the way home.

Obviously if the tyre blew up on the motorway had a major accident then VOSA would be all over this and their investigators may be able to prove that the tyre was defective at the time of the accident - but at the point of sale - who knows, only the Judge who may or may not of had a full english breakfast earlier that day.

londonTiger

don't worry yourself out of a deal, let him deal with everything post-transaction.

londonTiger

George_Michael wrote: »

Yes, you can drive to a garage without a valid MOT provided that you have a pre-booked MOT appointment but you can still be prosecuted if the car is unroadworthy whilst on the way to the garage.

when were you ever stopped by police to determine if your car was roadworthy. Based on the number of cars I've seen driving around with fog lights, blue aftermarket HIDs, misaligned dipped beams I'd say police aren't bothered about that. The oinly cops who might be interested are traffic cops and they'll only check tyres and stuff if they pull you over for some other violation.

edit: I guess traffic cops might pull buyer over for lack of road tax and while they have him on the side of the road, do a once over.

swanny_1

Wow, I seem to have opened a huge can of worms. I'm not sure what is considered 'unroadworthy', but to allow some light on this conversation I have included details of the MOT failure. I was quoted £500 for the work needed and having looked at the value of the same car (in good order) it became clear it was pointless to shell out that much. Without going into personal details, I need to be able to sell the car for whatever I can. The buyer has told me they are planning to drive it purely to 'see how it drives' and then plan to tow the rest of the way (roughly 65 miles). The car had been in use up until the MOT expired.

1. Electronic stability system warning lamp indicates a fault.
2. ABS warning lamp indicates an ABS fault.
3. Track rod end ball joint dust cover excessively deteriorated so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt offside.
4. Radius arm rubber bush deteriorated resulting in excessive movement offside rear.
5. Coil spring broken offside front.

Joe_Horner

swanny_1 wrote: »

1. Electronic stability system warning lamp indicates a fault.
2. ABS warning lamp indicates an ABS fault.
3. Track rod end ball joint dust cover excessively deteriorated so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt offside.
4. Radius arm rubber bush deteriorated resulting in excessive movement offside rear.
5. Coil spring broken offside front.

1 - probably wouldn't count as unroadworthy for the Act
2, 3, 4 and 5 - would count as unroadworthy because they're faults with brakes / steering / suspension although 3 on its own probably wouldn't raise too many eyebrows.

As others have been eager to point out, the chance of any comeback is small (probably almost non-existent) but you would be breaking the law by selling it with those faults if he didn't turn up equipped to trailer / low loader it away.

Retrogamer

Joe_Horner wrote: »

1 - probably wouldn't count as unroadworthy for the Act
2, 3, 4 and 5 - would count as unroadworthy because they're faults with brakes / steering / suspension although 3 on its own probably wouldn't raise too many eyebrows.

As others have been eager to point out, the chance of any comeback is small (probably almost non-existent) but you would be breaking the law by selling it with those faults if he didn't turn up equipped to trailer / low loader it away.

Every time someone goes over the speed limit by 1mph, which is virtually everyone who drives every day they drive, they're also breaking the law.

I'm not sure a bust dust cover on a ball joint would be a problem for the road traffic act. Previously it was an MOT pass if it was ripped as long as the ball join / track rod end wasn't worn. They just recently amended the MOT for damaged dust covers but the road traffic act hasn't been ammended i'm sure.

Joe_Horner

Retrogamer wrote: »

Every time someone goes over the speed limit by 1mph, which is virtually everyone who drives every day they drive, they're also breaking the law.

Quite, which is why I said the chance of being caught is small. But that's not the same as saying it's the buyer's problem only

Because if that small chance happens then it becomes very much the OP's problem. Especially now that it's established that the car not only isn't roadworthy but there's an MOT fail to prove the faults existed before sale.

It's not for any of us to decide for the OP whether that's an acceptable risk or not because, in the unlikely event of it happening, it wouldn't be any of us in court

Retrogamer wrote:

I'm not sure a bust dust cover on a ball joint would be a problem for the road traffic act. Previously it was an MOT pass if it was ripped as long as the ball join / track rod end wasn't worn. They just recently amended the MOT for damaged dust covers but the road traffic act hasn't been ammended i'm sure.

As I said, it's unlikely the dust cover on its own would be an issue. But uf they were charging over the others they 'd lose nothing by adding it to the list.

Incidentally, the RTA is never updated with particulars of roadworthiness requirements because they're covered by subordinate legislation in the form of statutory instruments such as the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and any further regulations like the lighting regs that are enabled by them.

Everything in the MOT is rooted in those regulations, which tend to simply state that various things must be maintained in good order. Whether or not a split dust cover stops the suspension being in good order is a matter of interpretation and, if the interpretation changes (which it has) then the existing regulations automatically cover it.