Hi, I have received a letter today which is a debt recovery notice for £80 for non payment of SORN declaration. It says I must pay the debt immediately otherwise legal action will commence and the car will be impounded. It also says I can end up with a minimum fine of £1000.

Here come the problems.

I now receive £55 per week Job Seekers Allowance, I have no assets or savings with which to pay the fine.

I don't have the car, it was stolen about 2 years ago and suffered major damage after it was crashed into a bridge, it was a write off and when it was recovered by a garage I couldn't pay their fine so didn't call them.

After getting on the property ladder for the first time I became the target of many crimes which destroyed my mental health, the worst of which was being burgled four times and my car being stolen. My car and house was damaged multiple times as well as being the victim of many incidents of antisocial behaviour. I now have massive debts, the house was eventually repossessed after I paid the 25 yr repayment mortgage for 3 years and I lost the £10k deposit I put down on the house after I was unable to work due to my health suffering through being the victim of endless crimes. I still owe £26k on the house and have total debts of around of £40k including the £7k loan I spent improving the house.

I couldn't claim on insurance for the car as I had left the keys in the door. I paid £460 for the car, the police gave me the number for the garage at the time and said the car had been severely smashed up when it hit a bridge and said I owed the garage about £270 for recovering the car. At the time my income was £40 a week income support, I had no way to pay the fine and no way to get to the car, it was found about 40 miles away in a different county. I did not call the garage as I didn't know how I would pay the fine. I presumed they had just declared it as scrap and got whatever they could off the car to try to get their money back for recovering it. I have never been able to afford to get back on the road again with another car.

My mental health is very poor, I think about suicide all the time, and would struggle to able to work, I am signed off sick by my doctor. I had everything going for me, and lost everything due to crime. One time I had no benefits or money for food and was refused a crisis loan so I threw away a lot of my stuff including all paperwork I had as I was prepared to end it all and still am.

What do I do? I have no car, no proof it was scrapped, no paperwork, no log book and am unable to pay the £80 fine they have issued me at my new address. I used to earn £600 per week, had my own car, home, now I have £55 a week to try and live off. Please somebody advise me the best course of action to take regarding this fine for non-SORN declaration.

Does anybody know any online competitions where the prize is a one-way plane ticket out of this country?

If your car was written off then, at that time, ownership passed to your insurer and they should have asked you to send them all the documentation.

As I only had third party insurance on the car, left the keys in the door and was not driving at the time, I was such a mess I didn't even contact the insurance company myself, nobody asked me for my insurance details. At the time I ended up in a terrible state due to everything that had happened, I used to shake uncontrollably and didn't live up to my responsibilities and just left everything as I couldn't cope whatsoever. As I left the keys in the door, the police told me that would invalidate an insurance claim as it was my own fault and I was responsible, I would just cower and cry for months on end in the corner of the room contemplating how best to kill myself, I did not care about anything. I didn't know how I would pay the £270 recovery fine and all the other bills and fines that were mounting, I just hid away from everything hoping it would all go away. The car was registered in my name, taxed and had third party insurance at the time. This happened about 2 years ago now and I have no paperwork anywhere.

In retrospect, I guess my main error then was not notifying the insurance company due to extremely poor mental health and hoping it would sort itself out. What do I do now? What is going to happen to me?

Since the garage scrapped the car, they had a duty of care to report the car to the DVLA as scrapped. It might be worthwhile contacting them to ask why this had not been done. You need proof from them that the car has been scrapped and on what date.

With this, you'll probably get the fine waived.

Hi, thanks for the replies.

I have no idea which garage took away my mashed up old car, it was very far away me.

Do you think the police would still have that information two years on if I asked them for it again? If I contact the garage they are probably going to fine me too for the recovery charges, but at least I won't end up at magistrates court for it and it will get DVLA off my back.

I have just read some interesting information on this page:

What to do if your vehicle is scrapped or written off : Directgov - Motoring

It says on a certificate of destruction the dvla is notified, it seems without a COD I am going to have to get a replacement registration document and then notify the DVLA that I no longer have ownership of the vehicle, the garage has probably scrapped it for spare parts without getting a certificate of destruction.

I will write to the police and see what information they have on their records and try to get a replacement v5 document. Apparently it costs £25 which is 50% of my weekly income. I may goto CAB for help once I get the replacement logbook and put a doctors letter in with it as well as whatever information I get from the police and the garage concerned.

Rip off Britain, too much yobbish behaviour from youths to try to make a living, I had more money the day I was born. The entire system works against you when you lose your mental health and just kicks you while you're down.

Thank you both for your help, I will try to do what I can.

This doesn't help your issue with a fine, but there is little point paying for a replacement V5C when all you wish to do is advise them of the vehicle's scrapping. WRITE to DVLA, stating that on XX date, the vehicle registration number XXXX was involved in an accident and was scrapped. You are therefore formally advising that the vehicle has been destroyed, and would like the DVLA to note this on their records.

There's a possibility that once this is processed, you might find that as their claim for tax comes after this, you'll be able to argue none is payable.

hi i have just been slapped with a 80 quid fine and dvla have never had my sorn form and they say if i have not recieved an acknowledgement letter its my fault im too busy to interact with them specially as i sent the form they blame the royal mail for not getting it so why cant i blame the royal mail for not getting their acknwledgment letter ! has anyone gone futher than this?