DVLA prosecution for car tax

jigershah

cajef said:

jigershah said:

Tokmon said:

jigershah said:

The_Fat_Controller said:

The transfer should have been completed BEFORE the vehicle was even delivered to you.

Did the seller actually agree to delay doing that until you were satisfied about the repair ?

If it wasn't as described you should have just rejected immediately and demanded a refund.

There are more holes in this story than Swiss Cheese.

Car dealer and we agreed a price at condition of repair and new MOT. on the day, I was called that repair and new MOT has been done. I was in office so money was paid on phone and car delivered to my home which dealer happily did it. my wife didnt know and this happened around 8pm. When I reached home, i drove vehicle at 9pm or around and realised steering problem was not fixed so I conveyed he should not transfer the ownership. He clearly by then didnt inform DVLA about transfer of ownership so car was delivered before transfer was done clearly. 

We were conveyed everything is fixed which clearly he didnt and he also didnt transfer the vehicle in my name making me thing this is not my ownership. I never got any DVLA confirmation for all those months neither we touched the car until the time FOS conclusion came through. 

I rejected it at 4am (after lets say 7 hours) as i was stressed that we have been done in and demanded the refund immediately. This is where dealer never refunded, made all excuses but also did not transfer the car in our name either... 

Where did you drive the car considering you had no insurance? 

 Anything prior i just thought I was not keeper and dealer accepted that by not transferring and DVLA never contacted me either so I never knew I had certain obligations I was not meeting. 

How could the DVLA contact you if neither you or the garage informed them you were the new owner?

by law I am not supposed to inform the DVLA, seller is which is my point. What do I inform DVLA that I have a slip but I dont accept the keepership of the car? 

Grumpy_chap

The OP purchased a vehicle in September 2019.

From that point onward, the new keeper (OP) should have taxed or SORN'd the car.  The £350 for back-tax should simply be paid - it is not DVLA problem that there is a fault with the car.

The car cannot be rejected and a refund obtained.  Irrespective of the time that passed, the supplying business appears to have been dissolved and cannot therefore be pursued.  The only thing the OP can do in this regard is to verify that the supply business has, indeed, been dissolved by checking online at Companies House.

Pursuing a claim against the credit provider will also be difficult, especially given the passage of time.

What I find odd in this is that the OP is up-in-arms about the value of the £350 car tax, but does not seem similarly concerned about the value of the car, ongoing repayments of the credit and cost of the repairs.  Surely, all these will far eclipse the VED due.

jigershah

Grumpy_chap said:

The OP purchased a vehicle in September 2019.

From that point onward, the new keeper (OP) should have taxed or SORN'd the car.  The £350 for back-tax should simply be paid - it is not DVLA problem that there is a fault with the car.

The car cannot be rejected and a refund obtained.  Irrespective of the time that passed, the supplying business appears to have been dissolved and cannot therefore be pursued.  The only thing the OP can do in this regard is to verify that the supply business has, indeed, been dissolved by checking online at Companies House.

Pursuing a claim against the credit provider will also be difficult, especially given the passage of time.

What I find odd in this is that the OP is up-in-arms about the value of the £350 car tax, but does not seem similarly concerned about the value of the car, ongoing repayments of the credit and cost of the repairs.  Surely, all these will far eclipse the VED due.

All other costs we have suffered and are going to suffer is the main reason I am trying to see if there was a little hope somewhere i can try and get this reduced or mitigated. Its clear we have not been knowledgeable enough with DVLA maters as we have never faced this situation before and yes things got stretched but at the end I still think we did not deliberately commit a crime. When dealer did not transfer keepership, I just assumed that he is keeping the v5c in his name or whatever existing state is and therefore we dont need to worry about it. I was wrong and I accept it. 

One question, who is OP? what is the full form of OP btw? Sorry. 

Appreciate your comments. Thanks again. 

Grumpy_chap

jigershah said:

One question, who is OP? what is the full form of OP btw? Sorry. 

Original Poster or Original Post, depending on tense and context.

In this thread, the Original Poster is @jigershah and the Original Post is this one:

jigershah said:

Dear all 

This is my first post so apologies for any mistakes firstly. 

We have a situation where DVLA enforcement team are threatening prosecution if we did not pay £350 odd as out of court settlement for car tax which they claim was our responsibility and we are disputing that it was our responsibility. 

We purchased a car from a dealer on 16th September 2019 at two conditions, steering problem fixed and a new MOT. Dealer claimed problem was fixed and MOT was done so I paid via Debit card and car was delivered to our home because it was for my wife who is a doctor and could not manage to collect it. That evening when I drove the car, immediately I realised that car steering problem was not fixed and therefore we were cheated. I texted 4am that night to dealer via whatsapp that condition is not met and therefore we want refund and we did not want to own the car and asked him specifically not to transfer the ownership in our name. 

Then there was a long battle to get our refund because dealer closed his company, did not refund, and I had to go bank who declined because they thought visa would not approve and financial ombuds also declined and around October 2020 (it took long because of Covid there were many delays with bank as well as financial ombuds) we arrived at a state of complete exhaustion having left with two options 1. to go court way and 2. to accept the car. 

I spoke to CAB and they advised I can use the green slip to transfer vehicle in my name and advised to talk to DVLA and explain. I called DVLA and they advised to fill in a form along with greenslip and send it to them. On this form there is a field which asks, do you have your v5c and if not, when did you get your car. We said we dont have v5c and we got the car on 16th september 2019 because it was delivered to us then. we did not think this was deemed to be keepership date as this is all new for us. 

Based on this form, v5c was sent to us and after 2 weeks, I declared the car SORN as it had to be fixed given the dangerous fault. 

After a few weeks, I got a letter from DVLA that I have defaulted and I should pay £350+ including fine for the time the car was not taxed. 

I explained the situation but everything was ignored. 

My wife is a doctor and she can not get out of hospital in these times to attend court and explain everything. I think DVLA enforcement team are ignoring the whole situation here and not offering us any conversation as we can not reach to anyone in DVLA enforcement team. They apparently can not talk. I think they are being unfair and ignorant that we are not keepers during that period which is evident that car dealer (who is responsible for transferring the vehicle) did not transfer the vehicle in our name until the time we accepted it and had to process in October 2020. 

Where do we stand? Its been stressful year for us given my wife's role during Covid, need for a car, having no car despite spending and me doing all the taxi work for over a year and now this is and starring at another £500 to replace steering rack etc. 

I dont know if anyone can guide. I have not gone through complaints or appeal yet and we have time until 29th April to pay or face prosecution. 

We would be extremely grateful for any help guidance please.

Warm regards
J Shah

AdrianC

jigershah said:

by law I am not supposed to inform the DVLA, seller is which is my point. What do I inform DVLA that I have a slip but I dont accept the keepership of the car? 

You seem to think that the dispute between you and the garage is relevant to you refusing to accept it's your car.

Nope. Doesn't work like that.

It became your car when you bought it.
It would have ceased to be your car if you'd succeeded in formally returning it under your consumer rights.
But... you never did. It was always your car.

You tried to refuse it the first night of your ownership - but the dealer did not accept that return.
What you should have done then was to physically return the car to his premises in the morning, along with all paperwork, and launch a court claim for your money. You didn't. You kept the car.

Any hopes of you getting your money back went when the limited company with whom you had a contract closed. You did not have any s172 comeback against a financier, because you paid by debit card, not credit card.

At that point, there was no argument whatsoever - it was YOUR CAR. Both in ownership and in keepership, which is very obviously legally distinct.

I don't think I see anywhere what age and value of car we're talking about here... Is a failed steering rack a problem that's unreasonable for a car of that age and price? It was certainly known to be failing at the time of purchase... the dealer simply failed to fix it pre-purchase. Well, since the dealer's no longer extant, that's irrelevant.

JamoLew

@jigershah

Sadly, I think you have been somewhat naive and "ignorant" of procedures and processes

We all make mistakes and it's not always someone elses fault

Take it on the chin, move on and learn from it.

jigershah

AdrianC said:

jigershah said:

by law I am not supposed to inform the DVLA, seller is which is my point. What do I inform DVLA that I have a slip but I dont accept the keepership of the car? 

You seem to think that the dispute between you and the garage is relevant to you refusing to accept it's your car.

Nope. Doesn't work like that.

It became your car when you bought it.
It would have ceased to be your car if you'd succeeded in formally returning it under your consumer rights.
But... you never did. It was always your car.

You tried to refuse it the first night of your ownership - but the dealer did not accept that return.
What you should have done then was to physically return the car to his premises in the morning, along with all paperwork, and launch a court claim for your money. You didn't. You kept the car.

Any hopes of you getting your money back went when the limited company with whom you had a contract closed. You did not have any s172 comeback against a financier, because you paid by debit card, not credit card.

At that point, there was no argument whatsoever - it was YOUR CAR. Both in ownership and in keepership, which is very obviously legally distinct.

I don't think I see anywhere what age and value of car we're talking about here... Is a failed steering rack a problem that's unreasonable for a car of that age and price? It was certainly known to be failing at the time of purchase... the dealer simply failed to fix it pre-purchase. Well, since the dealer's no longer extant, that's irrelevant.

Thanks Adrian, the car had dangerous fault so I did not want to drive it back to garage and I offered him to collect it and he kept offering excuses. Secondly, dealer accepted or implied acceptance of my rejection by not actioning the change of keepership of V5C. I understand all of these now but that was our position that we will not drive this car to the garage given the dangerous fault which was identified before purchase and was condition to purchase and we were lied that it was fixed which clear it wasnt. Failed steering rack isnt a problem, problem is garage claiming that its fixed (which is an expensive fix apparently costing £500 upwards with parts and labour). 

AdrianC

jigershah said:
the car had dangerous fault so I did not want to drive it back to garage and I offered him to collect it

Your legal responsibility to get it back to him, even if that meant getting your breakdown service or a paid transport firm to move it.

Secondly, dealer accepted or implied acceptance of my rejection by not actioning the change of keepership of V5C.

No, he didn't.

For all you know, he posted it back, and Royal Mail or DVLA lost it.

Even if he didn't, that is totally unrelated to any consumer rights rejection.

I understand all of these now but that was our position that we will not drive this car to the garage given the dangerous fault which was identified before purchase and was condition to purchase and we were lied that it was fixed which clear it wasnt. Failed steering rack isnt a problem, problem is garage claiming that its fixed (which is an expensive fix apparently costing £500 upwards with parts and labour). 

Lovely, but the company whose responsibility it was ceased to exist within weeks of your purchase.

jigershah

AdrianC said:

jigershah said:
the car had dangerous fault so I did not want to drive it back to garage and I offered him to collect it

Your legal responsibility to get it back to him, even if that meant getting your breakdown service or a paid transport firm to move it.

Where is that legislated that legally customer is responsible to get goods be it faulty or dangerous delivered back to the seller at customers own cost? Would love to see that written somewhere and I think I am then done and will accept all my faults then... If seller dumps a faulty car on someones driveway it then becomes driveway owners legal responsibility to get rid of it or send it to the seller or get rid of it?  

AdrianC

jigershah said:

AdrianC said:

jigershah said:
the car had dangerous fault so I did not want to drive it back to garage and I offered him to collect it

Your legal responsibility to get it back to him, even if that meant getting your breakdown service or a paid transport firm to move it.

Where is that legislated that legally customer is responsible to get goods be it faulty or dangerous delivered back to the seller at customers own cost?

Consumer Rights Act.

The supplier is only responsible for costs in transporting goods from the place where the customer physically took delivery - if you collected from his premises, you have to take it back there. If he delivered it to your drive, he has to collect it from your drive.