Personalised number plate query
Discussion
I've asked the DVLA but suspect I may get a quicker response on here.
My daughter has a personalised plate on her car, I did nothing with the old plates other than take them off and put them on a shelf in the garage.
Should she buy a new car I assume I would need to get her personalised plate unassigned to her current car and assigned to the new car, but what about her current car ?
Is it as simple as reassigning the original plate to it and and fitting them ?
My daughter has a personalised plate on her car, I did nothing with the old plates other than take them off and put them on a shelf in the garage.
Should she buy a new car I assume I would need to get her personalised plate unassigned to her current car and assigned to the new car, but what about her current car ?
Is it as simple as reassigning the original plate to it and and fitting them ?
As above - the private plate will need to be reassigned to the new vehicle (or put on retention if she does not have it yet), and the DVLA will re-assign the vehicle's original reg number if it is still available - if it was a desirable reg no in its own right it may have been sold, in which case they would assign a suitable registration of the same year. 99% of the time it will be the original reg no.
As mentioned above, do it before selling so that V5's etc have been received.
As mentioned above, do it before selling so that V5's etc have been received.
https://www.personalisedvehicleregistration.servic...
Costs £80 and that includes the transfer fee to the new vehicle , you get a retention certificate that lasts 10 years
DVLA usually just reissue the original registration
Costs £80 and that includes the transfer fee to the new vehicle , you get a retention certificate that lasts 10 years
DVLA usually just reissue the original registration
sixor8 said:
And do it a few weeks before selling it or trading it. A new V5c will need to be issued from Swansea and you won't be able to sell or part-ex the car without it.
The dealers I recently px'd our car at was OK to take it without the new V5, but wanted a £500 refundable deposit. Luckily the new one arrived the day before I was due to pick up the new car. It is a crap system though. You do it all online, then you have to wait for a bit of paper like it's 1980.Red9zero said:
It is a crap system though. You do it all online, then you have to wait for a bit of paper like it's 1980.
I actually think it's an OK system, but I learnt many years ago (while registering new & used cars, as well as imports) that if you do EXACTLY what DVLA wants you to do they will play ball. It all falls apart when you don't read their website thoroughly and try to put something through that you shouldn't, miss vital documents, don't sign things etc. Don't give them a reason NOT to do what you want them to.Stuff like this was much easier to do when there were regional DVLA offices.
Just looked it up, it was back in December 2013!
I once took 2 x V5c and MoTs etc to the Worcester office and they transferred a reg from one car to another while I waited. The new V5c documents still had to come from Swansea, but now ALL services have to go there, and they never lose stuff, do they?
Just looked it up, it was back in December 2013!I once took 2 x V5c and MoTs etc to the Worcester office and they transferred a reg from one car to another while I waited. The new V5c documents still had to come from Swansea, but now ALL services have to go there, and they never lose stuff, do they?

Was becoming a real pain in the neck requiring copies of tax discs and all sorts of other information, then they closed the regional offices and it got worse.
It is simpler to put it on retention before you sell the car and (if buying new) the retention fee covers the first registration so the dealer should not charge you for that.
It is simpler to put it on retention before you sell the car and (if buying new) the retention fee covers the first registration so the dealer should not charge you for that.
Just for information, if the car has been SORNed in the past few years, it may take a little longer. I have no idea why, but I was advised of this when I bought a car in 2021, that'd been under a SORN during the 2020 lockdown. Normally plate transfers can be done online, but if you need to send the paperwork in, it can take a fair amount longer. Think I was waiting for around 3 months for my plates to be sorted, compared to about a week for another car that'd not been recently SORNed.
CRA1G said:
DVLA have never sold any numbers that have previously been assigned/registered to a vehicle.
Are you sure about that? When we sold the Missus Zafira a few years ago, we put her plate on retention, had the old plates in the garage ready to put back on and when the new number came through it was different to the original, I called the dvla and they just said the original number was no longer available martinbiz said:
CRA1G said:
DVLA have never sold any numbers that have previously been assigned/registered to a vehicle.
Are you sure about that? When we sold the Missus Zafira a few years ago, we put her plate on retention, had the old plates in the garage ready to put back on and when the new number came through it was different to the original, I called the dvla and they just said the original number was no longer available martinbiz said:
CRA1G said:
DVLA have never sold any numbers that have previously been assigned/registered to a vehicle.
Are you sure about that? When we sold the Missus Zafira a few years ago, we put her plate on retention, had the old plates in the garage ready to put back on and when the new number came through it was different to the original, I called the dvla and they just said the original number was no longer available 
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