Insurance Fine Dilemma

[Fury RS]

Hi, a good friend of mine has just received a summons in the post off the DVLA to appear at court with a fine of up to £1100 if found guilty! The offence is owning/using a vehicle which is uninsured, offence was recorded around late October 2014 according to the letter he received. This is where the problem lies, he p/ex'd the vehicle to a main dealer back in July 2014 and bought a brand new car off of them.
There was the hassle of a private plate he owned to come off his old car and go onto retention before he could pick the new car up. Once he received the new log book he took his old car to the dealer to p/x it for the new car he bought. When he signed everything he told the salesman that the log book and service history were in the glove compartment. The other thing is he can't remember or not if he signed the sellers slip off the log book.
My mate rang the garage up and they are trying to say they didn't have it at first but then came back and said they found it later in November2014!!! The salesman is being a right awkward %@&* and is trying to make out that my mate didn't leave it with the car but they then said they found it in November
Obviously this has really spoilt my mates day and really worrying him. Any replies, recommendations etc. would be very much appreciated...
Thank you.

[barker22]

I would be using the receipt for the new car as evidence that he infact changed his car so he cannot be fined for this particular continuous insurance offence as he never owned the car. Mention nothing other than 'I didn't own the car at the time of offence' basically

This then leads to the DVLA potentially chasing him for not declaring change of keeper.
The change of keeper is an entirely different matter and would be up to the DVLA to pursue but past cases seem to point towards the DVLA backing down at the last minute.

Edited by barker22 on Saturday 3rd January 21:17

[LoonR1]

What did your mate do when he got the letters advising him to insure or SORN the car?

EDIT: obviously a stupid question from me, as this is PH and nobody ever gets any letters ever.

[herewego]

It was his responsibility to send the V5C to the DVLA so I don't think you should be blaming the dealer.

[Kinky]

LoonR1 said:

EDIT: obviously a stupid question from me, as this is PH and nobody ever gets any letters ever.

I didn't. Well, I got a letter from them telling me that I was going to court for not telling them I'd sold my car months earlier.

Even though I'd sent it to them 3 times already - 2 times as registered/signed-for!

[LoonR1]

Kinky said:

I didn't. Well, I got a letter from them telling me that I was going to court for not telling them I'd sold my car months earlier.

Even though I'd sent it to them 3 times already - 2 times as registered/signed-for!

You didn't get any of these letters at all and nor did the OP? Specifically insurance related questions.

http://www.mib.org.uk/Motor+Insurance+Database/en/...

Course you didn't.

It's truly amazing how everyone gets every letter when parked illegally, just so they can ignore the. As per the Pepipoo wibble and yet never get any of the CIE letters at all. What a coincidence.

[Kinky]

Well documented on PH previously

[shep1001]

Seems a bit fishy to me, having just had 2 new cars from 2 different main dealer brands, each was at pains to go through the change of ownership process in great detail which included completing the V5 document and countersigning off on the paperwork tick list this had been done along with other thinks like the service record & spare keys etc. How would the dealer sell the car or put it into trade without the log book??

At the end of the day it's his own fault for not nailing down the change of ownership of the old car. And failing to act on the requests from the DVLA about tax/sorn for the vehicle. DVLA must have had the contact details correct as the summons arrived at the correct address.

My guess is he ignored the previous correspondence and is now stting himself as the DVLA are going for a prosecution. You normally get an offer from them too to settle before court so unless he fancies his chances in front of the beak it might be worth seeing what the DVLA want to make this problem of his own making go away

[Sheepshanks]

LoonR1 said:

What did your mate do when he got the letters advising him to insure or SORN the car?

EDIT: obviously a stupid question from me, as this is PH and nobody ever gets any letters ever.

My house insurance with LV= auto-renewed 1st Jan. Got the docs yesterday. But we didn't get the advance notification that should have arrived 3 weeks ago. Who knows if that's LV's fault or Royal Mail's?

[shep1001]

Sheepshanks said:

My house insurance with LV= auto-renewed 1st Jan. Got the docs yesterday. But we didn't get the advance notification that should have arrived 3 weeks ago. Who knows if that's LV's fault or Royal Mail's?

Irrelevant, assuming you did not want it to auto renew as its down to you to read the T&C's on the policy you took out & agreed to 12 months previous and act accordingly. Use the post date on the envelope and the date on the covering letter with the policy documents to work out when it was sent.

[Sheepshanks]

shep1001 said:

Irrelevant, assuming you did not want it to auto renew as its down to you to read the T&C's on the policy you took out & agreed to 12 months previous and act accordingly. Use the post date on the envelope and the date on the covering letter with the policy documents to work out when it was sent.

I'm not complaining about it, just giving an example of a letter which the insurance company will absolutely insist they sent, but which I didn't get.

[Pommygranite]

Sheepshanks said:

My house insurance with LV= auto-renewed 1st Jan. Got the docs yesterday. But we didn't get the advance notification that should have arrived 3 weeks ago. Who knows if that's LV's fault or Royal Mail's?

I used to work at LV=. The letters auto generate and are always sent. Royal Mails fault it is.

[MagneticMeerkat]

Sheepshanks said:

shep1001 said:

Irrelevant, assuming you did not want it to auto renew as its down to you to read the T&C's on the policy you took out & agreed to 12 months previous and act accordingly. Use the post date on the envelope and the date on the covering letter with the policy documents to work out when it was sent.

I'm not complaining about it, just giving an example of a letter which the insurance company will absolutely insist they sent, but which I didn't get.

I don't work in insurance but deal with similar queries each day! The answers are

1) Sender: "It's Royal Mail's fault"

2) Royal Mail: "It was never sent"

If you really want to hear those repeated at length you can complain to either party. Reality is it'll never be proven either way. Correspondence is automatically generated, although sometimes it isn't. Conversely postmen are reliable, but some drop letters or mail falls out of bags.

Both will insist they are correct, as reasonable internal checks will reveal nothing further. The phrase 'sent in good faith' is an abiding principle.

In sum, pointless argument is pointless. However feel free to carry on as I've got a cushy job dealing with the fall out.

[martinbiz]

As said earlier the OP's problem is that as the seller it is his responsibility to send the V5c off not the dealers, if you are p-exing most dealers will offer to do the paperwork and send it on your behalf, but you always run the risk of them not doing it, losing it, forgetting etc. A call to the DVLA explaining won't do any harm, you may get lucky.

[Fury RS]

Thanks for your replies Peeps...

[Fury RS]

Update on mate's insurance dilemma. He mailed all the bumf off to the DVLA i.e. new car purchase contract, p/x details etc. for his new car and his old car from the dealer and also a letter explaining his naivety in trusting the dealer in question. He just received a letter off the DVLA with another court date if pleading not guilty and the possibility of a fine up to £1100 if found guilty or a reduced fine of £50 and that would be the end of it. He's paying the £50.
Lesson learnt!

[shep1001]

Fury RS said:

Update on mate's insurance dilemma. He mailed all the bumf off to the DVLA i.e. new car purchase contract, p/x details etc. for his new car and his old car from the dealer and also a letter explaining his naivety in trusting the dealer in question. He just received a letter off the DVLA with another court date if pleading not guilty and the possibility of a fine up to £1100 if found guilty or a reduced fine of £50 and that would be the end of it. He's paying the £50.
Lesson learnt!

He folded too early. DVLA try to bully you into paying the fine. A friend of mine had a spot of bother with them, started with he same it could cost you ££££ or you can pay £50 rubbish. They folded 10 minutes before the case was due to be heard and still would not admit they were wrong in the letter confirming they were no longer taking action

[herewego]

shep1001 said:

Fury RS said:

Update on mate's insurance dilemma. He mailed all the bumf off to the DVLA i.e. new car purchase contract, p/x details etc. for his new car and his old car from the dealer and also a letter explaining his naivety in trusting the dealer in question. He just received a letter off the DVLA with another court date if pleading not guilty and the possibility of a fine up to £1100 if found guilty or a reduced fine of £50 and that would be the end of it. He's paying the £50.
Lesson learnt!

He folded too early. DVLA try to bully you into paying the fine. A friend of mine had a spot of bother with them, started with he same it could cost you ££££ or you can pay £50 rubbish. They folded 10 minutes before the case was due to be heard and still would not admit they were wrong in the letter confirming they were no longer taking action

But in this case they were not wrong, he should have sent off the V5c as it was his responsibility.

[Fury RS]

herewego said:

shep1001 said:

Fury RS said:

Update on mate's insurance dilemma. He mailed all the bumf off to the DVLA i.e. new car purchase contract, p/x details etc. for his new car and his old car from the dealer and also a letter explaining his naivety in trusting the dealer in question. He just received a letter off the DVLA with another court date if pleading not guilty and the possibility of a fine up to £1100 if found guilty or a reduced fine of £50 and that would be the end of it. He's paying the £50.
Lesson learnt!

He folded too early. DVLA try to bully you into paying the fine. A friend of mine had a spot of bother with them, started with he same it could cost you ££££ or you can pay £50 rubbish. They folded 10 minutes before the case was due to be heard and still would not admit they were wrong in the letter confirming they were no longer taking action

But in this case they were not wrong, he should have sent off the V5c as it was his responsibility.

Hence the reason he paid up...

[rash_decision]

So here's a situation I've been in.

A trader I know offered to sell a car I was trying to get rid of. I worked overseas at the time, and it helped me out big time that he was dealing with it, and the fact he could offer finance was a help too. He instructed me to cancel my insurance and save some money, as it was now in his care and covered by his trade policy. If for talking sake that car never sold for 6 months, would I be liable for a fine for having no insurance on the car as it was still registered to me???