Drive SORN'd car to new house

[winshent]

I was thinking taking my car off the road for the winter as insurance is up for renewal next week and I dont plan to use it until around April, so I was looking at SORN'ing the car also.

I will be moving house late Dec or early Jan..

What are my options? If a friend drives it under their insurance then from an insurance stand point its ok?

Would I technically have to pay for one months road tax just to move it to the new house, which is two miles away?

[covboy]

winshent said:

I was thinking taking my car off the road for the winter as insurance is up for renewal next week and I dont plan to use it until around April, so I was looking at SORN'ing the car also.

I will be moving house late Dec or early Jan..

What are my options? If a friend drives it under their insurance then from an insurance stand point its ok?

Would I technically have to pay for one months road tax just to move it to the new house, which is two miles away?

Trailer it.

[PurpleMoonlight]

I believe the vehicle itself needs to be insured for someone else's insurance to drive it to be valid.

Assuming there are no cameras on the way, if it were me I would drive it the 2 miles in the early hours when there is little traffic and people about.

[paintman]

Sod's law says that if you do that, the one time you don't want a police car around there will be one!

[winshent]

I didn't realise a car has to be insured by the owner in order for a fried who insured to drive other cars TPFT..

I don't have access to a trailer..

Just weighing up the risk...

[BluePurpleRed]

You could of course ore book an MOT for it. So therefore OK. On the way back happen to go to the other house. So you are fine if you get stopped as you are coming to and from a registered / pre booked MOT appointment. If being a little disingenuous.

• This only helps with SORN. Not lack of insurance. I assum even if SORN you would have insurance anyway?

[ianwayne]

That's not disingeneous, it's genius!

I bought a car on ebay and insured it for one day for about £25 through dayinsure or similar. Car has to have valid MoT for this of course.

You could tow it, but that distance without a proper bar (i.e. using a rope) may not be a good idea.

[onomatopoeia]

PurpleMoonlight said:

I believe the vehicle itself needs to be insured for someone else's insurance to drive it to be valid.

Not in law it doesn't, but the insurance policy may require it for the driving other cars clause to work.

[winshent]

BluePurpleRed said:

You could of course ore book an MOT for it. So therefore OK. On the way back happen to go to the other house. So you are fine if you get stopped as you are coming to and from a registered / pre booked MOT appointment. If being a little disingenuous.

• This only helps with SORN. Not lack of insurance. I assum even if SORN you would have insurance anyway?

Nice idea but I only MOT'd the car last month LOL..

The idea was to leave it in the garage of the new house and hope it doesn't get nicked. Therefore offsetting the insurance payment..

This is our first house we are buying and trying to save every penny atm.. And my other car is now off the road so all extra is going to that.

[ianwayne]

I read on another thread on here somewhere that because buyers will require instant VED online, it can be bought without proof of insurance.

So, get 1 or 2 days insurance, buy VED, move car, declare it SORN again. You'll lose a month's VED of course and the temporary insurance premium but it's the legal way to do it.

It may be cheaper to have a word with a local garage with a recovery vehicle to move it for you. For 2 miles £50 or so in their pocket may be a good earner.

You'll get a warning after a while for having a car not insured if you don't declare it SORN again. Don't forget you'll have to send the V5c away for change of address as well.

[AA999]

If new house is only two miles away then if it were me I'd wait until the cover of darkness and just drive it to the new house.
Rules are rules etc. , but sometimes things are just a game of risk balance.

[Dixy]

If it will be insured but not taxed just do It at a normal time and if plod stops you admit it straight away and hope to win the attitude lottery. If it is not insured speak very nicely to a local garage and get them to drive it on trade plates and their insurance.
If it is towed all 4 wheels need to be off the ground.

[Dromedary66]

If you do decide to risk it make sure your journey isn't past any of those ANPR cameras that are hooked up to the DVLA.

[AlexRS2782]

ianwayne said:

It may be cheaper to have a word with a local garage with a recovery vehicle to move it for you. For 2 miles £50 or so in their pocket may be a good earner.

I'll second this as a suggestion. I had to do similar last year when moving my former Saxo VTS track car that was on SORN & I didn't want to risk driving it.

Spoke to a couple of the small local recovery companies and also a couple of the local "scrap your car" people who use a flat bed. Ended up using one of them who charged £30 cash to move the car a couple of miles down the road for me.

Had I gone with one of the local recovery companies, they'd said they'd charge about £40-£50 for the same service.

[Sheepshanks]

onomatopoeia said:

PurpleMoonlight said:

I believe the vehicle itself needs to be insured for someone else's insurance to drive it to be valid.

Not in law it doesn't, but the insurance policy may require it for the driving other cars clause to work.

That's often stated but it's unusual in practice.

The problem now is that since the Continuous Insurance Regulations came into force, all cars on the road have to have their own insurance. So the above is a bit of a moot point.

If someone drove an uninsured car using their DOC cover, then their insurer would have to cover 3rd party liabilities. But the vehicle's owner would still be breaching the CIE regulations and stopped the car would be impounded as uninsured.

[blueg33]

Insure online drive to new house and cancel during the cooling off period.

[23rdian]

blueg33 said:

Insure online drive to new house and cancel during the cooling off period.

I was going to say...

Day insure it and risk the tax

But the above is even better

[Pothole]

A 'friend' recently drove his untaxed, un MOTed, SORNed vehicle 9 miles to its current resting place. Said it was the slowest, tensest drive he's ever done. Passed 3 traffic cars and a layby MOT check, which was luckily full of its 3 cars at a time quota!!

Edited by Pothole on Monday 1st December 14:22

[Red Devil]

onomatopoeia said:

PurpleMoonlight said:

I believe the vehicle itself needs to be insured for someone else's insurance to drive it to be valid.

Not in law it doesn't, but the insurance policy may require it for the driving other cars clause to work.

^^This^^

It depends on whether the policy under which DOC cover is being used has such a clause. Some do, some don't.

However, even if there is, CIE effectively makes it moot because the OP's vehicle will be SORNed. He has declared it off road so it can't go back on unless he unSORNs it. He will then have to reinstate his own cover, so the point of using a third party's DOC provision has just flown out of the window. It's simply not worth dg around with insurance. Do that and Sod's law says he will encounter plod whereupon an ANPR ping will flash up. Result - a £200 FPN, 6 points, and an IN10 endorsement code which will really screw up his renewal premium.

MOT/VED is something else. A full month's VED for a one-off 10 minute drive is well OTT. The DVLA is making a nice little earner from double dipping under the new non-transferability regime so in the OP's case it can Foxtrot Oscar. As another poster has said, book a test. Arrange this with a friendly testing station for the day the car is to be moved. Drive to the new house then call the garage to let them know that unfortunately you're unable to get to them that day. It's simply a matter of getting the timing right.

[aw51 121565]

Dromedary66 said:

If you do decide to risk it make sure your journey isn't past any of those ANPR cameras that are hooked up to the DVLA.

Just use cloned plates .

NO, DON'T!! THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED!

But, as a point of interest, you'd get away with it if the original car is legal and above board .

FOR INFORMATION ONLY, PLEASE DO NOT FOLLOW THIS ADVICE. It only goes to show why "policing by database" is fundamentally flawed...