Selling Car With No Insurance - SORN Deadline - Options?

TCA

My elderly mother had to give up driving recently because of her eyesight and returned her driving licence to the DVLA as requested. Mum decided to keep her car because she hoped to drive again after her cataracts operation. The car (worth about £4k-£5k) has a valid MOT, has stayed in the driveway and remains road taxed, but we cancelled her car insurance because it's very expensive and it's not a short wait for her operation. I had hoped however that she'd get her operation before the need to SORN the vehicle, but she has now received a letter from the Motor Insurer's Bureau stating that the car needs to be insured or SORNed within the next couple of weeks to avoid a fine, which is fair enough.

On discussing it, my mum now says she doesn't want to drive again and wants to sell the car. We'll look to do it the easiest way possible, even if that means getting less money for it as we don't want the hassle of selling it privately. I imagine SORNing would reduce the value of the vehicle. I started looking at We Buy Any Car and Motorway thinking those methods could be a quick solution before the SORN deadline. Reading the reviews, neither fills me with confidence and one initial problem is that mum no longer has the required photo I.D (driving licence or passport), so I'd need to find out if they accept anything else. Motorway seemed a better option because they collect the car and I was initially thinking we could probably get the car sold before the SORN deadline. It seems that to sell the vehicle however, it still requires to have insurance, even though my mother will never drive it again.

I assume this is from a test drive perspective when someone uses their own cover to drive someone else's car third party and that someone else's car therefore still needs its own insurance. I'd hoped this would be avoided with the likes of Motorway, assuming that dealers would have their own insurance for test driving, but not according to their website.  

I presume my mum won't be able to insure the car because she doesn't have a driving licence any more, so I see no option other than me insuring the car in my name for a short while. If the car gets sold quickly (by whatever means) I might even be able to insure the car and cancel the insurance within the 14-day cooling off period. Or I could just get a temporary insurance policy. But I'm also thinking I'd have to tell my own car insurer and there would be implications for my own policy?  

Can someone please confirm my understanding?

Would approaching local car dealers be a better option?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Keep_pedalling

Motorway is the better option as they collect. I recently sold a car to them, they did not test drive it (other than drive it onto the low loader that took it away) but if they do they will put trade plates on it to do that, so there is no need for it to be insured, and anyway most insurance policies do not cover 3rd party drivers.  I did not need to show them any documentation other than the V5, MOT and service history and if the car is being collected from the address of the registered keeper. 

TCA

Excellent. Thanks for the reply. All these car buying websites state it's illegal to sell a car without insurance. I couldn't find anything definitive from a reliable source, but it gave me pause for thought. If Motorway don't ask to see (or for you to upload) insurance docs, then that seems the best option.

I guess it depends on the individual dealer whether they want to test drive or not. 

Thanks. 

paul_c123

TCA said:

 All these car buying websites state it's illegal to sell a car without insurance.

Its not illegal to sell a car without insurance.

Go for Motorway, they'll collect the car and they'll have insurance. I don't believe WBAC do collections.

Mildly_Miffed

It's been illegal to have a taxed but uninsured car since 2011. If it's not insured, it has to be SORNed and off the road.

It's perfectly legal to sell an uninsured and SORNed car - but obviously it needs to either be taken away by a trader using trade plates and his own insurance, or collected by truck.

If you want to drive it to, say, WBAC then you need insurance (a day temporary policy is fine) and you need to tax it. No, you don't need tell your other insurer.

Aretnap

TCA said:

Excellent. Thanks for the reply. All these car buying websites state it's illegal to sell a car without insurance. I couldn't find anything definitive from a reliable source, but it gave me pause for thought. If Motorway don't ask to see (or for you to upload) insurance docs, then that seems the best option.

I guess it depends on the individual dealer whether they want to test drive or not. 

Thanks. 

It's definitely not illegal to sell a car without insurance. It can create complications if the buyer wants to test drive it, but (1) there's no requirement to let the buyer test drive it (though obviously he might not agree to buy it if he can't) and (2) most motor traders (as opposed to private buyers) will have a trade policy which covers them to test drive your car if they want to. 

There's also no particular reason why a car being on SORN should reduce is value - the new owner is going to have to tax it themselves SORNed or not. If it's been SORNed for a very long time it might lead to concerns about how long it's spent rushing on your driveway, but being SORNed for a couple of weeks shouldn't have any appreciable effect on the value.

TCA

Mildly_Miffed said:

It's been illegal to have a taxed but uninsured car since 2011. If it's not insured, it has to be SORNed and off the road.

Yes, it's something I wasn't aware of, not being a car owner at that time. The letter from the MIB gives 28 days (from date of letter) to insure or SORN before a fine (or worse) but that's only a couple of weeks away now (my mum just showed me the letter yesterday). If we can sell the car via Motorway in that time then it would seem pointless to SORN. I suppose at the least we could leave it until the last minute if the car doesn't sell in that time frame. 

paul_c123

Mildly_Miffed said:

It's perfectly legal to sell an uninsured and SORNed car - but obviously it needs to either be taken away by a trader using trade plates and his own insurance, or collected by truck.

Or if selling privately, they could sort out their own tax/insurance after they've paid the money on a sale, before they drive away.

WellKnownSid

paul_c123 said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

It's perfectly legal to sell an uninsured and SORNed car - but obviously it needs to either be taken away by a trader using trade plates and his own insurance, or collected by truck.

Or if selling privately, they could sort out their own tax/insurance after they've paid the money on a sale, before they drive away.

Correct - it is perfectly normal to buy a car this way - the buyer has to sort their own tax/insurance out because whatever was in place before the sale would no longer apply the moment it changes hands...

Mildly_Miffed

TCA said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

It's been illegal to have a taxed but uninsured car since 2011. If it's not insured, it has to be SORNed and off the road.

Yes, it's something I wasn't aware of, not being a car owner at that time. The letter from the MIB gives 28 days (from date of letter) to insure or SORN before a fine (or worse) but that's only a couple of weeks away now (my mum just showed me the letter yesterday). If we can sell the car via Motorway in that time then it would seem pointless to SORN. I suppose at the least we could leave it until the last minute if the car doesn't sell in that time frame. 

Just SORN it now. There's absolutely no reason not to. It can't be on the road uninsured, so there's no benefit whatsoever in wasting money on tax.

If you'd SORNed it on Thursday, you'd have had August's tax refunded as well as any subsequent months.

TCA

Mildly_Miffed said:

If you'd SORNed it on Thursday, you'd have had August's tax refunded as well as any subsequent months.

Yes, that dawned on me.

I've gone ahead with Motorway. The photos were a bit of a faff but the profile is now done and I need to call them tomorrow when they're open. Something to do with agreeing a reserve price and getting it in the next auction. So it'll hopefully all happen quite quickly.

Re to SORN or not, the government website says just report as sold instead if you no longer own it, so I'm leaning towards just doing that if a sale goes through quickly.