Refund for car tax question

ChocolateMouse

Hi all,

I recently purchased a spares car. I decided to drive the car home as it still had mot & taxed it for 6 months on the sellers driveway. They sorted the logbook online & I got it a week later. I declared the car sorn a couple of days after receiving but I didn’t check to see it was showing as taxed. I’m now worrying that the tax refund will have gone to the seller when they switched the owners - is this likely?

I know phoning DVLA would be the ideal but I thought I would ask here before I trying as I guess their phone lines will be even worse than normal!

Thanks,
CM

Scrapit

Bad news, the tax didn't go to you. Hasn't for a while. And the car wasn't taxed when you took it away.

TadleyBaggie

ChocolateMouse said:

I’m now worrying that the tax refund will have gone to the seller when they switched the owners - is this likely?

As soon as the registered keeper was updated (not owner as DVLA have no idea who the owner is) a refund would have been issued to the previous keeper. This has been the case for a number of years.

KimJongUn88

You should have taxed it using the code on your new keeper slip.

AdrianC

When you taxed it, did you do so as the old keeper (using a V11 or the doc ref on the main V5C), or as the new keeper (using the doc ref on the V5C/2)?

That'll determine who gets the tax refund.

ChocolateMouse

Scrapit said:

Bad news, the tax didn't go to you. Hasn't for a while. And the car wasn't taxed when you took it away.

Ah well, live and learn I guess. Out of interest why was it not taxed when I drove it away?

TadleyBaggie said:

ChocolateMouse said:

I’m now worrying that the tax refund will have gone to the seller when they switched the owners - is this likely?

As soon as the registered keeper was updated (not owner as DVLA have no idea who the owner is) a refund would have been issued to the previous keeper. This has been the case for a number of years.

I meant the registered keeper. I know the tax refunds to RK but at the time I was just trying to keep it all legal - didn’t really think about the refund steps.

KimJongUn88 said:

You should have taxed it using the code on your new keeper slip.

To be honest I don’t remember the method I used but I guess the fact I don’t have a refund is proof enough!

Thanks for the replies though folks, most helpful 👍

AdrianC

ChocolateMouse said:
Out of interest why was it not taxed when I drove it away?

Because, after the colourful circular piece of paper in your windscreen was sent to the scrap heap of history where it belonged in 2014, tax was made non-transferable on keeper change. Sell car, auto-refund. Buy car, it's untaxed.

It wasn't exactly unprecedented - SORN had expired on keeper-change since it was introduced in 1999.

ChocolateMouse

AdrianC said:

When you taxed it, did you do so as the old keeper (using a V11 or the doc ref on the main V5C), or as the new keeper (using the doc ref on the V5C/2)?

That'll determine who gets the tax refund.

I must have taxed it with the new keeper part in retrospect as I did it after I had paid for the car - I wouldn’t have had the V5 at that point. It’s been about 5 weeks now but I expected covid related delays so haven’t chased it.

AdrianC said:

ChocolateMouse said:
Out of interest why was it not taxed when I drove it away?

Because, after the colourful circular piece of paper in your windscreen was sent to the scrap heap of history where it belonged in 2014, tax was made non-transferable on keeper change. Sell car, auto-refund. Buy car, it's untaxed.

It wasn't exactly unprecedented - SORN had expired on keeper-change since it was introduced in 1999.

I was enquiring as to why it wasn’t taxed when I drove it home. If they didn’t switch the RK for a few hours surely the car was still taxed for my journey? It doesn’t really matter, just curious.

AdrianC

ChocolateMouse said:

AdrianC said:

ChocolateMouse said:
Out of interest why was it not taxed when I drove it away?

Because, after the colourful circular piece of paper in your windscreen was sent to the scrap heap of history where it belonged in 2014, tax was made non-transferable on keeper change. Sell car, auto-refund. Buy car, it's untaxed.

It wasn't exactly unprecedented - SORN had expired on keeper-change since it was introduced in 1999.

I was enquiring as to why it wasn’t taxed when I drove it home. If they didn’t switch the RK for a few hours surely the car was still taxed for my journey? It doesn’t really matter, just curious.

Perhaps it was SORNed for the vendor?
If it was being sold by a trader, and DVLA had been notified it was "in trade", then it wouldn't be either taxed or SORNed, and the previous "real" keeper would have already had their tax refund.