selling a car going to Northern Ireland

[cortina61]

I recently sold my car to someone who came from Northern Ireland to collect it. He asked me to give him the whole DVLA document as he had had a horrendous time with them in the past transferring documentaton from Swansea to N.I.
I was worried from the point of view of speeding tickets etc, so we wrote a letter, and both signed it stating the time and date of the transfer of the vehicle.
I ( yes, stupid I know) assumed that N.I would tell Swansea that the vehicle had a new owner....
The new owner did all the necessary paperwork in N.I, and cashed in the tax and retaxed it there
A few weeks ago, I had a letter saying I had failed to retax the vehicle - from Glasgow, - there is no way of speaking to them unless you're ringing to pay the fine!.....
so I wrote, explaining and sent a copy of the signed piece of paper confirming the transfer.
However i have still been given a £40 penalty, which i have begrudgingly paid today, or it would go up to £80.
I cannot believe the different parts of DVLA dont communicate.

I think £40 is really excessive, when I acted in all good faith to help the new owner.
I asked the guy at Glasgow if he enjoyed his job when I paid the penalty. Not really was the reply !

Anyway..... felt I should warn people..... don't do anything kind to help a new buyer

and what really, really, really adds insult to injury is paying 0870 rates to be held in a queue to pay the penalty charge aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh !

theres an alternative to the 0870 number on the say no to 0870 site, but surprise surprise it doesnt receive incoming calls.

They really have making money stitched up don't they!

rant over

[buzby]

I have the problem in reverse, (an NI vehicle being 'imported' to GB). The documentation is all identical and I received the slip and he posted off the V5NI to Coleraine. I'm at a loss why the Tax Disk of your vehicle should have been sent for a rebate, this added additional problems where there were none - and causing the SORN nightmare to reappear. The DVLA an DVNI simply don;t want to work together and will send you form pillar to post, but since there is no requirement for the Registration Marks to change, a tax disk purchased in the GB or NI is legally valid irrespective of where the vehicle is registered (DVNI will accept an inbound vehicle with a tax disk and note its expiry date for their records.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I suspect that what may have happened in this case is that the buyer has registered the car with DVLNI so that he gets an NI registration number. There's no legal requirement for this, and there are an increasing number of cars on the road here with mainland plates, but there are still some areas where NI plates are probably better.

The other possibility is that the buyer has sold the car already - although not as bad as it was, cars are more expensive here. Used cars here tend to come without a tax disc, and if trading in or selling it's usual to get a refund first.