Yesterday I got pulled on the M6 for having no tax even though the car I was in is taxed until October, I bought the car in June with the disc on it.

The plod said the car had been sorned in June so the disc must be fake, I have contacted the previous owner who confirmed he did sorn the car in June but didnt return the disc as he was selling the car.

I thought you had to return the disc to sorn a taxed car otherwise how the heck is an innocent buyer like me supposed to know that the car hes bought with a tax disc in the window is actually sorned?

As it is Im facing a hefty fine for this so Im off to the dvla in the morning but any advice is much appreciated.

SORN is only relevant to the person who made it, if the vehicle has changed hands then the SORN no longer applies. Have you had the V5 back in your name?

surely doesn't matter, if the disc hasn't been returned, it's still taxed...surely?
Once again, the system makes it hard for people to do the right thing.

You can SORN a car without returning the tax disc.

I SORN'd my historic vehicle a month after getting a new 12 month disc. Seeing as Historic car discs are free there was no reason to return it. Two months later I re-insured the car, rang the DVLA who removed the SORN marker from my car, and sent a letter confirming as such in the post.

Sorn cancels the tax, the disc is just a piece of paper that can be refunded if the owner chooses to. Just because there is a disc on it doesn't mean it is taxed.

Thanks for the answers chaps,sadly looks like i might be shafted but will go in and
Plead my case at the dvla in the morning.
The sorn form states you can only use it to sorn untaxed or tax ending vehicles and u have to use the tax reclaim form to sorn a taxed car but it sounds like thst might not be the case.

The system doesnt make much sense to me and i work in the motor trade!

In the sellers defence i think he sorned it as he had swapped insurance to his new car and thought wrongly that the tax disc is still valid.

I'll post on here tomorrow to say how things end up.

This was the subject of a pretty long debate on here a while back about what happened when sorning a taxed car and not returning the tax disk. From memory, the debate was supposing that the statute did not say the tax ceased, but that DVLA made up the law to say you had to return the tax disk.

Anyone got a better recollection of the debate?

Bert

That was the debate. That DVLA said you needed to, but the law didn't. Again from memory this truned around the fact that the drafting of the need to Sorn for no insurance was effectively "bolted on" to the existing Sorn legislation.
Bert

Yes - I agree it is totally unreasonable and rediculous to expect a purchaser to 'know' as if by magic, that the original owner had sorned but not returned the disk, and elected NOT to tell the purchaser. It is likely more than not that when purchasing a vehicle like this you would at least ask if the tax comes with the purchase, as sellers can and do redeem. Otherwise it is a legitimate assumption that the tax comes with the car.

So, the fault lies with the system and not the purchaser, both morally and I suspect legally if he took it all the way in court, and I for one, given the same situation, would take it all the way in the hope it would give the DVLA or the purchaser a 'bloody nose' or at least negative publicity. If it failed? Well your going to get dinged anyway....

I normally check the tax status by looking at the tax disc when the car is handed over.

I never once considered that it could be sorned AND have a (now invalid) tax disc. If I was the OP I'd be fighting this.