After owning the same car for over 20years I found myself needing to replace it.

I purchased a car last year (August 17) which was £0 tax.

All the relevant paperwork was sent off and i received the new keeper registration document.

What I didn't realise is that i needed to register my car online.

In November 17 my vehicle was clamped for being untaxed.

I was totally shocked and couldn't understand why this was as i did not have to pay tax on it.

My mistake.

I paid the fine of £100 to get it unclamped after registering the car.

I thought that was it.

However, I have now received a letter to say that must pay out an out of court settlement of £30.00 to stop DVLA taking me to court!

I dont understand how that can be if i have paid the fine and corrected my mistake.

I was not told that i would be charged an additional £30 2 months later!

Surely, this money making and cannot be legal

Does anyone else experienced this? please advise.

Do I pay the £30 fine

Hello and welcome to CAG.

Could you upload a redacted copy of the DVLA letter please?

Best, HB

Who from dvla or dca

Usually the £100 is the un-clamping fee, followed by an out of court settlement offer letter from the DVLA for the offence of having an unlicensed vehicle.

From DVLA - Enforcement Centre

So would you advice that i should pay settlement costs.

Are you able to post up the redacted letter as I asked please? It will help us to give you specific advice.

HB

I have attached a jpeg of the letter.

DVLA.pdf

hidden the above you MUST redact things of pers info/anything that can ID you.

please read upload

and post as a PDF

Hi

Post#8 Edited and Approved

Pay DVLA the £30 - cheapest option IMO

Did you buy from a reputable Dealer?

The OP is suffering from one of the ironies of tax exemption and that is you still have to fill out a tax renewal every year.

The same goes for veteran cars that dont need tax or an MOT,

you sill have to jump through the same hoops and even declare the vehicle SORNed if you are going to leave it in the garage this year instead of doing the London to brighton run.

So your problem was not the registration of the vehicle but your failure to apply for road tax at the nil rate for the year.

Not much you can do to get out of the £30 rip off demand

This is why they dont do away with road tax and slap the extra on as fuel duty

...I paid the fine of £100 to get it unclamped after registering the car. I thought that was it

as the letter says, the clamping is deemed separate to the 'untaxed' liability (its note #3 re the Regs).

as said, the same hoops need to be jumped through re a nil tax vehicle. (even though they know its nil on their computers)

this is something to be aware of now when buying/transferring a vehicle, as any tax (even nil) on it now gets auto cancelled upon. before

Has anyone ever appealed the decision?

under what grounds?

That the fine to unclamp the vehicle was paid promptly and also no other information was given about out of court settlement fine.

its not a fine...its an out of court settlement

not a clampers job to tell you the law...

so there will be nothing that can be done and no point in appealing the penalty

IMHO no.

dx

thank you for your help and time.

The normal DVLA Penalty for not taxing a car is min £30 + any road tax due.

Just be grateful you were not stopped by a Police check which would have shown no tax on vehicle and may have invalidated your Ins.

It took me 2 mins online , this week to tax an exempt vehicle for 12 month for £nil having received the V11 reminder.

A common misconception/urban myth.

Not having VEL on a vehicle does not invalidate your insurance. No VEL is a revenue offence and has absolutely nothing to do with car insurance.

However, under devolved powers (powers devolved from the DVLA to the Police) if the force that stops you have them (most do now) a vehicle with expired VEL can be seized.