Unlawful change of owner at DVLA

[bottomburp]

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[patdavies]

Originally Posted by bottomburp

Please help me to help my friend.

She bought a car in 2005 for around £14,000 mostly financed, deposit of around £2,000. She made all the payments to the finance company as due until mid 2006 when she hit hard times. She had paid in excess of one third of the loan by this stage.

Last year she discovered the finance company had, changed the vehicle registration document (VRD), stating they were the car's Registered Keeper (RK). According to the paperwork from the time she started the lease the finance company cannot repossess a car without going to court if repayments in excess of one third have been made.

All that means is that they are liable for parking/speeding tickets etc.

Do NOT confuse the RK with the owner; they are different entities. As it appears that the car is on HP, she has never been the owner - the HP company are until she completes the agreement. The identity of the RK is completely irrelevant to ownership - the DVLA even make this very clear on the V5

Thankfully the new VRD arrived a week or so before she had to renew the tax disc; she would not have been able to do this if she did not have the VRD showing herself as RK.

Doesn't matter whose name is one the V5 for purposes of renewing the VED. As long as the Mot and insurance certificate match the VRM

Presumably she was also, in all innocence, driving an uninsured car for the six months that the car VRD was not in her name? I assume this as the details she had given the insurance company regarding the car's RK had, unbeknownst to her, been changed.

I doubt it. She is the main driver and therefore required to have insurance in her name. The insurance company should have been told that the vehicle was on HP anyway - she should not have ticked any box that she was the owner (she wasn't; see above)

My friend is now in a better financial position and would like to buy the car from the finance company. They have said they want about £8,000.

Her only options are to continue to pay the instalments for the term of the agreement or go for early settlement and pay what they are asking.

I do not see that they have acted unlawfully and they have not put her in any negative position. Like I said, the owner was the HP company all along. The RK is unimportant in all this.

Sorry, it's probably not the answer you wanted...

[bottomburp]

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[patdavies]

Originally Posted by bottomburp

Without this replacement document (she had none as she'd sent it to Swansea to change the address) she was unable to tax the car.

This is simply not so. You can get VED (it hasn't been called Road Fund for some years) without a V5. She simply needs to complete a V62 and pay the £25 fee. The V62 will fail, but the VED remains valid. Anyway, what happened to the original V5 with her name on it.

When she got her insurance she said she was the Registered Keeper and the HP company was the owner. When the HP company because the Registered Keeper (and they did this without my friend's knowledge or consent) this meant the details my friend had given to the insurance company were no longer correct.

Was there a specific question about the name/address of the RK as opposed to "Do you own the vehicle". Keepership is almost irrelevant for insurance purposes (but see below).

In another thread I read yesterday about a young man who was paying the HP on his brother's behalf but the car was insured by the mother the insurance company refused to pay out because the insurance was invalid as the mother was not the Registered Keeper or owner.

This is called 'fronting'. The mother was claiming to be the main driver in order to gain reduced premium. The insurance company have refused to pay out because she was not the main driver. Although being the RK might be persuasive, it is not proof. For example, if I buy a car for my son to use (yeah, right) and hold it on the V5 in my name, he must insure it in his name, not mine as he will be the main user.

The name/address of the RK on the V5 does not have to match the insurance certificate - ask any company/lease car driver. Only the VRM needs to match

The DVLA have told her that the HP company had no right to change the Registered Keeper into their name without a court order and because they had changed the name fo the Registered Keeper would not send out the Vehicle Registration Document back to my friend.

This, I am afraid is nonsense, they do not need any Court order. The RK is the person responsible for the vehicle - they are not necessarily the owner. A change in ownership (or a warrant to seize the vehicle) would require a Court order.

It would appear that the DVLA person has confused ownership and keepership:o

This resulted in her not being able to obtain a new Road Fund Licence. Without a Road Fund Licence you cannot drive the car on a public highway.

Obtaining VED, I have dealt with above. Yes you are right, without VED you cannot drive or park a vehicle on a road maintained at public expense.

The HP company have told my friend that anyone can write in and change the Registered Keeper on any vehicle without the existing keeper's consent. That means that if I see a car that I fancy driving along the road I can write in to the DVLA and say "please change the Registered Keeper's name to mine". I really don't believe this can possibly be true.

It is absolutely true. However, if the change of registered keepership is not accompanied by the old V5, DVLA will write to the RK shown on the V5 to see if they object. If no response is received, the new V5 is issued to the new RK.

By changing the name of the Registered Keeper the HP company was effectively depriving my friend of being able to use the car by the back-door. Their paperwork states that they can only repossess the car with a court order if more that one third of the financing has been paid.

No they haven't. All they have done really is prevented her from taking the vehicle abroad - since you need to carry the V5.

They have not attempted to repossess the vehicle 'by the back door'. Repossession is ownership, not registered keepership. Anyway, as soon as she knew that the HP company were the RK, why did she not demand that they obtain VED for the vehicle - the RK (whoever it is) is legally responsible for VED.

[bottomburp]

I am completely and utterly bewildered.

I don't know what a V5 or a V6 or a V62 or a VED or a VRM are so ...

[bottomburp]

Originally Posted by patdavies

Anyway, what happened to the original V5 with her name on it.

If a V5 is what I call the Vehicle Registration Document then please read my posts above as I have explained quite clearly, twice, what happened to the original.

[patdavies]

V5 = Registration document (actually V5(c) )
V6 = typo for V5 - that I corrected. You must have read it before I corrected it.
V62 = Application form for a replacement V5
VED = Vehicle Excise Duty (commonly known as road tax; previously known as road fund licence)
VRM = Vehicle Registration Mark. The registration number issued by DVLA to the vehicle by virtue of the V5

[patdavies]

Originally Posted by bottomburp

If a V5 is what I call the Vehicle Registration Document then please read my posts above as I have explained quite clearly, twice, what happened to the original.

OK, my bad - I see now that she sent it to DVLA for an address update.

[bottomburp]

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[patdavies]

I can see no compelling reason for an HP company to do this - I, however am not privy to their thought processes.

There is one thing that has confused me on re-reading this thread. We have assumed that this is HP but this comment from your initial post raises doubts

from the time she started the lease

So, is this an HP agreement, or is it a lease?

It is perfectly normal for a leasing company to retain registered keepership

[bottomburp]

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[patdavies]

OK, so the 'lease' bit is a red herring - no probs.

Has she asked the HP company why they did this?

Who are they?

What has she done to stop them simply repeating the changer of keeper again?

[bottomburp]

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[patdavies]

Originally Posted by bottomburp

I don't believe BAF should have done this without a court order. What BAF did was effectively remove her ability to drive the car (the lack of V5 resulted in her not being able to buy a new VED meaning she could not drive the car on a public road, or even park it on a public road and even if you think her insurance was not invalidated by BAF being the RK I'm fairly sure it would have been invalidated if the car didn't have VED). You say the local DVLA was wrong telling her she could not obtain new VED without the V5; she double/triple checked this and was repeatedly told she could not obtain the new VED without the V5. Are you sure you are correct about this? Most people assume, maybe wrongly, that these official bodies know what they are talking about. BAF did this when she had repaid more than 1/3 of the finance (which means they have to get a court order to repossess the car).

As I explained above, nobody needs a Court Order to change keepership of a vehicle (I am not sure what the DVLA would do with one anyway). You say that they have to get a Court Order to repossess and this is correct. But that deals with ownership; totally separate issue from keepership.

Her insurance is not invalidated by not having VED - how on earth do you think you can drive an untaxed & unMoT'd car to and from a test - it still has to be insured. I know of no motor insurance policy that requires the vehicle to have VED as a condition of providing insurance cover. Some may 'void' the policy, but that is not in any way the same thing - legal minimum cover is maintained. As I have stated before, the RK and insurance are separate issues. At the moment, the RK is not responsible for the insurance of a motor vehicle; the driver is.

I have have explained how she could have obtained VED. Driving it without VED would not have directly affected her - any fine would go the the registered keeper. Had the vehicle been clamped or seized and crushed, it is a matter for the RK (HP company). OK, she could, in theory have been done by a Police Officer for "failing to display" - but it would be a hard-hearted officer indeed, given that she was not the RK. Anyway, failing to display is a non-endorseable £30 fixed penalty - which if it occurred, I would reclaim from the RK.

This is why I can't understand why BAF have done this. They are already the owner; becoming RK is only taking on liability. By asserting keepership, they have not prevented her from driving the vehicle - she doesn't need to obtain VED; the RK is wholly responsible for VED.

[heartopp]

Originally Posted by patdavies