I understand your point Busby but I felt after 7 months of wrangling and the conversation this morning I felt I had taken it as far as I could without wasting more of my time and potentially costing me more than the £80. I've learnt my lesson with dealing with the DVLA. Send everything recorded Phone on a regular basis to check progress and don't assume anything.

thanks for all your help. i've just spent 30mins on the phone,trying so say about the tax refund letter but they would not budge. There argument was that If I'd sent it by recorded delivery they would have lodged all the contents. When I said you don't say that on any form. They did not have a response. In the end I caved in and paid the fine. I'm a law abiding person and could not have the thought of this hanging over me. Although I did get them to record the fact that I did not agree with the fine and was paying it under protest. (For what it's worth).

Please can somebody offer any advice. We part exchanged our car back in December and sent off the tax disc and the log book to DVLA. They in turn sent us back a cheque of the refund of the tax but nothing else. We did not chase them for the confirmation letter. We have subsequently received a Late Licensing Penalty for failling to tax the car in January. We have written to them a couple of times explaining the situation and providing the Used Car Part Exchange Invoice that we were no longer the owners of the car, but they are still refusing to budge and say we must pay the fine. I don't understand why we must pay the fine if they haven't done their job. They obviously got our forms because the refunded the tax but didn't apply the change in ownership. Admittedly we did not chase for the confirmation letter but this is not against the law, however they are now stating that under the Continuous Registration the registered keeper is responsible until they have a receipt from DVLA acknowledging their disposal notification. So if they don't send it out or you don't get it you can be fined. Sorry it's long winded but I'm getting really frustrated and I'm thinking about just rolling over and paying the £80 but the principal is wrong.