Personal plate transfer

chrisfen

Hi again everyone I have a private plate on retention because I did not want to put it on my stop gap car and have now found a car I hope to buy on Tuesday coming (private sale) is there anyway I can transfer the plate without waiting for the new V5 to come back in my name 

KimJongUn88

No. You have to wait until you get the new V5 in your name.

blackdog2220

no , from memory (did one about 4 weeks ago) gov website asks you to imput vrn and number off v5 , by doing this you stop people maliciously ruining your day by making mistakes , mine was a new number on form from DVLA , took 5 mins online and email to say swop plates 

JamoLew

I believe you can actually do this - BUT you are effectively "gifting" the plate to the seller and hoping that the sale doesn't fall through

You can give the seller the retention details and they can apply the plate to the car before you buy/pay/complete

Not something I would be willing to try myself especially with a "valuable" plate

BOWFER

No, you have to wait until you get the V5 (we have four private plates in the family).
However, it doesn't take long and you should only be driving around on the 'normal' plate for a few days.
At the point you get the new V5 with the 'boring' plate, you put the details of that and the retention certficate online and you can change the plates immediately (IE you don't have to wait for another V5 showing the private plate).