DVLA fine for passed on car

greenturnips

Hoping someone with a bit of legal knowledge can help.

A friends partner recently died and prior to that, say 6 months or so he gave his car to his daughter. She, as it turns out has not payed the road tax, which it transpired he has never changed ,the ownership of the car. The DVLA are now sending letters addressed to him with a fine and back duty to pay.

His partner is worried sick and is wanting to pay the fine and back duty, but I don't think she should out of principle.

It doesn't appear that the DVLA are interested.

Where does she stand on this?

glentoran99

greenturnips wrote: »

Hoping someone with a bit of legal knowledge can help.

A friends partner recently died and prior to that, say 6 months or so he gave his car to his daughter. She, as it turns out has not payed the road tax, which it transpired he has never changed ,the ownership of the car. The DVLA are now sending letters addressed to him with a fine and back duty to pay.

His partner is worried sick and is wanting to pay the fine and back duty, but I don't think she should out of principle.

It doesn't appear that the DVLA are interested.

Where does she stand on this?

Simple it needs paid by the registered keeper, no ifs and buts or excuses

Car_54

glentoran99 wrote: »

Simple it needs paid by the registered keeper, no ifs and buts or excuses

But if I understand the OP correctly, the registered keeper was never changed.

The RK is now deceased: DVLA need to be advised of this, and the car now put in the OP's name and taxed.

I don't know whether the DVLA will pursue the late partner's estate for the fine and back tax: I suspect not.

greenturnips

glentoran99 wrote: »

Simple it needs paid by the registered keeper, no ifs and buts or excuses

Thanks for the advice. He's dead, nice one.

greenturnips

Car_54 wrote: »

But if I understand the OP correctly, the registered keeper was never changed.

The RK is now deceased: DVLA need to be advised of this, and the car now put in the OP's name and taxed.

I don't know whether the DVLA will pursue the late partner's estate for the fine and back tax: I suspect not.

Thanks, what I've been told, they have threatened his partner with the bailiffs, but I can't see how that can hold up as the estate is now settled. It his relative that has failed to pay the tax and will not take responsibility for it.

She wants to just pay it to make it go away, but I don't think she should be bullied into it.

forgotmyname

Estate settled where debts still exist? Naughty.

greenturnips

forgotmyname wrote: »

Estate settled where debts still exist? Naughty.

Right people, if you nothing constructive to say, say nothing at all.

The fine came after the settlement of the estate. It was an unknown. The point is he gave the car away to a relative.

usefulmale

greenturnips wrote: »

Hoping someone with a bit of legal knowledge can help.

A friends partner recently died and prior to that, say 6 months or so he gave his car to his daughter. She, as it turns out has not payed the road tax, which it transpired he has never changed ,the ownership of the car. The DVLA are now sending letters addressed to him with a fine and back duty to pay.

His partner is worried sick and is wanting to pay the fine and back duty, but I don't think she should out of principle.

It doesn't appear that the DVLA are interested.

Where does she stand on this?

Is the partner dead or not?

It is not clear who has given what to who.

angrycrow

Its crystal clear what has happened, the deceased before his death decided to stop driving and gifted his car to his daughter but failed to inform dvla of the change of keeper. The daughter also failed to inform the dvla of the change and failed in her duty to tax the car possibly assuming her father would continue taxing it.

The deceased partner has now had a letter addressed to the deceased with a fine for non payment of the tax.

First thing to do is to get the car correctly registered to the daughter from the date it was given to her. Then you need to lay the situation out to the dvla possibly mentioning the deceased was to ill to notify the change of keeper and had relied on the daughter to do so. Dvla are not known for their charitable or understanding nature but you never know. Of course if this works it solves the problem for the deceased partner and the fine will be reissued to the daughter who should have taken responsibility in the first place.

AdrianC

The original failure - to notify DVLA of change of keeper - was his.
That was compounded by two failures on the part of the daughter - to notify the change of keeper when she didn't receive a V5C in her own name within four weeks, and then to renew the VED.

Both would be liable for fines.
Since the vehicle had already been disposed of before the death, then the executor cannot be expected to have been aware of that failure, so they did nothing wrong.

But the daughter needs to extract digit and start to take responsibility, too.

dannyrst

AdrianC wrote: »

The original failure - to notify DVLA of change of keeper - was his.
That was compounded by two failures on the part of the daughter - to notify the change of keeper when she didn't receive a V5C in her own name within four weeks, and then to renew the VED.

Both would be liable for fines.
Since the vehicle had already been disposed of before the death, then the executor cannot be expected to have been aware of that failure, so they did nothing wrong.

But the daughter needs to extract digit and start to take responsibility, too.

As I'm sure you're aware, the owner and RK are separate things. The deceased, prior to death, can gift the car to someone without a requirement to amend the RK.