So angry...

windswept

My daughter has been pulled over by the police today - he informed her that the car we share was untaxed and he nearly arrested her!:eek:
We bought the car 7 months ago ( with 8 months tax, or so we thought) from a local garage, you couldn't properly make out the reg number on the disc as it had water damage but we thought nothing if it till today, the numbers you could see matched.
I didn't receive a log book from DVLA so I rang them and they sent me a form to register the car , I got the v5 back in Feb I think - surely if it was untaxed they would have / should have informed me?
I know there's no comeback on the garage - it was that long ago he would just deny it and may have been as ignorant as we were, I am just soo furious that it happened at all - I would have taxed it anyway in another 3 weeks! Instead I have a £60 fine - so 6 months tax has cost me double. :mad:

Wig

Have you phoned the DVLA to ask if there is a problem with the tax disc status?

Also check here for Tax status online, but it might be worth contacting DVLA directly aswell. I don't understand the tax disc problem, either it is real and hence valid or it is a forgery and the garage would be at fault.

windswept

It is a real tax disc - just not for my car!
I did check online and it came up as unlicensed - the copper tried another reg number, what we thought was an f was a p - it came up as a Birmingham registered car. The thing he didn't say was just how long our car had been untaxed - if it was in the last couple of months i should have got a reminder from dvla as the car is registered to me.
The worry is whether it's been untaxed for a long time - the garage supposedly only had the car in a couple of days before we bought it, it was registered to a local woman, she'd owned it for 14 months.
I'm worried about ringing dvla incase they land me with another fine, since it could have been unlicensed from the time I registered it with them back in Jan/Feb but it shows on the v5 as having been owned by me since September.

anewman

I doubt they would land you with another fine. I would explain the situation - it seems you have done everything you can to ensure the car is correctly registered and has current tax and the first you knew different was when the police pulled up your daughter. It may be easier to take the £60 on the nose though than let it go to court to contest the fine.

Wig

Tax the vehicle ASAP. Pay the fine (nothing you can do about that), he was lenient to give you a fixed penalty (by the sounds of it).

Write a letter explaining the whole situation to the DVLA including the old tax disc - recorded delivery. Presumably by coincidence, the faded reg number on the taxdisc was similar to the actual reg number of the car?

The DVLA could decide to be lenient aswell. You will have to pay the back dated tax for the car from the date of purchase/expiry of the real tax disc whichever is the most recent date - you should also offer to do this in your letter to the DVLA, they WILL require it anyway but your offering it is an indication of your honesty and more likely to influence them to draw a line under the whole affair after the back dated tax has been paid.

Conor_3

She's been let off lightly. My mate got caught with the tax disc in from another vehicle and got charged with fraud. They were also well within their rights to impound the car as well. Basically the onus is on you to check the tax disc was correct, which, like most people you didn't because you rightly assume the garage would have done.
DVLA are not obliged to inform you about the status of the tax when you apply for a V5.

vaio

hold on….

You bought a car from a garage, it came with tax which whilst apparently being legal subsequently turns out to be fake?

Sounds to me like you need to refer it all back to the garage coupled with a police report. I’d also get some legal advice and not pay anything until I did.

Banana23

vaio wrote: »

hold on….

You bought a car from a garage, it came with tax which whilst apparently being legal subsequently turns out to be fake?

Sounds to me like you need to refer it all back to the garage coupled with a police report. I’d also get some legal advice and not pay anything until I did.

Absolutely agree! The garage needs to take some responsibility here. It doesn't matter how long it was ago (it wasn't even that long ago). Who knows, maybe the garage has even done this type of thing before and is known to the Police for having done it?!

windswept

I think because the policeman believed my daughter he didn't even request that I produce documents - I assume if they know whether a vehicle is taxed, they would also know I was the registered keeper and the fact that it is fully insured.
He didn't take any details of where the car was purchased from or anything like that.
My hubby is all for going to the garage (it's a good few miles away) and giving them hell - but I can't imagine for one minute that they will be interested, if it was a genuine mistake and they either never noticed the wrong disc on the windscreen (it was taken in part-ex the day before we visited, it was pure chance - we were on our way back from somewhere and pulled in on impulse) or they gave us the wrong disc then I'm sure they would say it was partly our responsibility for not checking.
After all, if the tax had been up last month or the month before, I would have simply taxed it and been none the wiser, just puzzled at the fact no reminder had been received.
If it was a mix up by the garage ( even though there was not another corsa at the garage - the tax disc was for an x reg corsa like mine) then that means someone else had our disc all along, it would be interesting to know if they get pulled shortly, but of course they will more than likely just tax their car without ever knowing.
The more I think about it , the weirder it all seems.
I'm just very relieved that the policeman was decent and not just some jobsworth out for has arrest quota.
The one thing I would really like to know, is how long my car has been untaxed - I just feel that if I question it with the dvla I'm asking for trouble.:o

Banana23

windswept wrote: »

I think because the policeman believed my daughter he didn't even request that I produce documents - I assume if they know whether a vehicle is taxed, they would also know I was the registered keeper and the fact that it is fully insured.
He didn't take any details of where the car was purchased from or anything like that.
My hubby is all for going to the garage (it's a good few miles away) and giving them hell - but I can't imagine for one minute that they will be interested, if it was a genuine mistake and they either never noticed the wrong disc on the windscreen (it was taken in part-ex the day before we visited, it was pure chance - we were on our way back from somewhere and pulled in on impulse) or they gave us the wrong disc then I'm sure they would say it was partly our responsibility for not checking.
After all, if the tax had been up last month or the month before, I would have simply taxed it and been none the wiser, just puzzled at the fact no reminder had been received.
If it was a mix up by the garage ( even though there was not another corsa at the garage - the tax disc was for an x reg corsa like mine) then that means someone else had our disc all along, it would be interesting to know if they get pulled shortly, but of course they will more than likely just tax their car without ever knowing.
The more I think about it , the weirder it all seems.
I'm just very relieved that the policeman was decent and not just some jobsworth out for has arrest quota.
The one thing I would really like to know, is how long my car has been untaxed - I just feel that if I question it with the dvla I'm asking for trouble.:o

In my opinion it's the also the responsibility of the garage to ensure the car was taxed appropriately. Maybe they have genuinely mixed it up, who knows. Anyway, before ringing the DVLA I would seek legal advice. A good starting point are two forums, they'll put you in the right direction:

consumeractiongroup.co.uk and
pepipoo.com

Both have great forums in which you can ask the question again and you'll probably be given a bit more expertly advice.

Good luck.

Markyt

windswept wrote: »

you couldn't properly make out the reg number on the disc as it had water damage

That isn't water damage. How often does enough water get on the inside of the windscreen to affect the tax disc?

It sounds to me like solvent was used to blur the details.