Thread: DVLA's endless investigation

Hello to everybody and let me start my rant. It seems that I have bought a car with a bit of a history and now I can’t get V5 and tax the car. DVLA says that the VIN mismatches their records so they want to inspect the vehicle. Well, apparently they are not too keen to do so, as it has been four months since they have received my application. (I mean “my application” because the man who’d sold the car did not send his V5 to DVLA. It’s just amazing how stupid I was not to see those obvious things that the seller was not very familiar with his "own house", that he had only one set of keys, that the garage name on the number plates was different from the dealers name on the car windows, and finally that one of the two VIN plaques was removed from the car! How could I forget to ring the car check company and verify VIN? Beware, without this telephone call any internet car check is absolutely useless!!! I can only say that that bloke must be a professional, because the logbook, the service book and the MOT all looked genuine. I actually asked DVLA people if they spotted anything wrong with the VC5/2, but they said they shredded it just as they received it. They apparently always destroy these papers before checking them.) Ok, even though DVLA says over the phone that once they see the car they may simply issue the new set of number plates, I know how it will end up. DVLA will send the local police (probably after another 4 months delay), who will take the car to the insurance company and who will auction it the same day. So at the moment all I can do is to drive without road tax and wait for that day. I know how it sounds, but as long as my insurance is valid I don’t hurt other people. Initially I was a bit irritated by the DVLA lazy attitude. I used to phone them strait to their investigation team (I have their direct number if somebody needs it), only to hear that my caseworker was off for the whole week. I even submitted a proposal onto BetterRegulation.gov.uk suggesting a grace period for the road tax if DVLA delayed the documents. Obviously, no luck there. The success rate for the DVLA-related proposals is 4% compared to 28% for the DVLA-unrelated ones (and that’s before taking into account “responded by alternative means” which still means rejection). But now I begin to think that this delay is my golden chance to get few pennies back. Please don’t laugh, I know my IQ must be well below average, but I thought maybe I could sell the car to somewhere outside EU. So my main question is: is that totally illegal? I mean, I know I am not the registered keeper of the car, and then I sell it to a country where UK registration problems don’t matter. Can I be taken to court by DVLA or the insurance company for doing this? Frankly, I could not bother less about the insurance company “losing money”. They must have already written this car off (and the car itself is a bit dated and recently it has barely passed MOT). Only last week my own insurer charged me £16 administration fee for the change of the address, and I moved to a better postcode. I still remember that two years ago RAC passed my data to Norwich Union (they had the same owner), which had its own Breakdown service. Then the last year NU automatically subscribed me for their service and I noticed that I was paying twice only when it was too late – haven’t I already told you about my IQ? It’s just to illustrate how I love these people and that I probably won’t have sleepless nights over some insurance company not seizing my car. But will they hold me to account for that? It’s rather a theoretical question, but it would be soothing to know that I still have a choice.

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Forgive me, but I am not sure exactly what you are asking.
Let's start at the beginning. You have bought a car, and have not received a V5C? You say that DVLA have shredded a V5C/2? I assume that this is the one you received from the seller, and sent it to DVLA along with an application for a V5C?
You say that your only option is to drive this car without road tax, I would not advise this. Another option to consider is to not use the car until this matter is resolved.

Not having road tax does not invalidate your insurance. That is a myth.

Callumsgran,

Do you have proof that not having road tax invalidates your insurance?

Having no Vehicle Excise Licence does not invalidate a persons insurance. You can insure a vehicle without tax, but not tax a vehicle without insurance. The only things that would invalidate a persons insurance is when they fail to disclose something that would affect their premium, such as penalty points on their licence or modifications to a vehicle.

Callumsgran,

There are times when it is perfectly lawful to drive an untaxed vehicle - it it has exempt status during those times.

The driver does however, need to be insured to use the vehicle on the road.

It is a myth that no VED (road tax) or MoT invalidates insurance.

Many thanks for your replies. It is good to hear that not having road tax does not invalidate the insurance. I think I can recall this question being on the theoretical test. It is also true that one can drive to and from VOSA for prearranged appointments with just MOT and insurance. And ideally, if a tree falls on a SORNed but insured car, the policy should pay something out. I did not mention to my insurer that I am not the registered keeper of the car, but don’t they see it on their system? Anyway, with my car being a clone, some details from two cars inevitably overlap. For example, my car appears as taxed on the system (because the original one is taxed – that is what DVLA repeatedly tells me is another reason why they are not in a hurry) and MOTed (the MOT is mine – as I can see it on the VOSA website). Before I renewed the MOT the VOSA had showed a discrepancy between my MOT number and theirs. I asked DVLA people about the reason for the mismatch – whether my MOT was an outright fake or it was just a mix up of the details from two cars. They were unable to tell – possibly because they had not seen my MOT paperwork – but I felt they were not interested much. Then having heard that DVLA shredded the V5C/2 I sent them, I’ve just stopped bothering.

Well, I may have more questions to DVLA. How was it possible a garage issued duplicate number plates and these were still not seen as stolen on the system? How was it possible to tax this car with these very registration numbers last year? Why the reference number on V5C/2 they destroyed (I kept a photocopy of) is not traceable (unlike the number in the V11 tax reminder form)? But my impression now is that such a situation is quite typical and there is no one to answer these questions. IMHO, the system works as follows. Thieves can manipulate the documents and number plates quite easily, and that would require quite an effort from DVLA to investigate the matter. So instead the focus is on the correctness of the VIN. It would be more difficult for the criminals to make high quality VIN plates with numbers exactly matching those assigned to the particular registration number. Therefore HPI and other car check companies consider the correctness of the VIN as a necessary and sufficient condition to support you legally if any query arises. DVLA also assumes that you make sure the VIN is correct; otherwise it’s just all hell breaks loose for them. So when you do a car check, it is absolutely essential that you know the VIN and you can type it in. The car check company will never tell you the VIN (even though anyone can see it under the windscreen in my car). So the only way is to type this number before you go to the viewing or you need to phone the company as you view the car. I did not do it and so my car check became worthless. After all, as we know it, it is always a buyer’s responsibility. If, as they say, out of 400,000 cars stolen every year 120,000 are not recovered, and of those 40,000 end up being sold to unlucky people, the easiest thing for the insurance industry is to trace the buyers. That’s just how it works. And it’s good for our taxes. Who wants to pay for the police going after every case? So just make sure your VIN is right.

What does make things looking especially grim in my particular case is that DVLA does not want me to do the visual inspection of the vehicle (VIC) at my local VOSA. They specifically told me not to go to VOSA for some reason. Well, certainly the car will fail VIC, then by law I will be allowed to drive it back home and then I WILL KNOW. ((It will surely fail, because the VIN is missing from the chassis. I fear that, seeing this, no one will ever bother to check if the engine number is right match for the other VIN plate. The engine number is not easily seen on this particular model. Well, DVLA can’t even tell me if they are going to check the identity of my car and all numbers against the car that has my registration plates or the car that has my VIN. Why not, what sensitive information is there? But every time I ask I hear a different however very unclear response.)) What DVLA wants is to do its own check, apparently having all powers to impound the car. Therefore I cannot even arrange the visual inspection at the nearest DVLA office. They tell me to keep it off the road and wait for the DVLA or police officers to come to my place. This scenario is already described in the internet, so the outcome is that police comes and takes the keys and the car. The only difference is that it normally takes less than four months plus.

I have this “grace time period” with not being the registered keeper. So I was just wondering what should happen if a tree fell on the car. Or if I hit a signpost? Or if I sold the car to the scrapyard? That would recover about 10% of all costs btw. Would the insurance company that say owned the car sue me for the money? I inherited a dent on the car – do I have to pay for the repair work too? And what about the interest earned over these four months? That’s why I was asking about shipping the car abroad – however stupidly it should sound. It is not technically easy to do, because one needs the registration certificate in order to drive across the border. But if I sold it abroad I would loose less, even after paying all possible costs to the insurer. Everybody would win, even the insurance company (although I don’t care too much about this aspect I must say). The company won’t claw back much with the auction. One should be completely out of his mind to buy this car – even if taxable, it would be unsellable at later stage.

So what are my rights and responsibilities at the moment? What I would appreciate most was if DVLA simply told me if the car with this VIN was stolen or not. As long as they are refusing to answer this question I begin to think that in fact I have zero responsibility and they just don’t want me to realize it.