Personalized plate retention help please!

[D34NO87]

I brought an E36 328 last October as a winter project, made progress during the winter but it's going to roll into being this winters project too but when I brought it it had been sorn'd for a while and the condition of the sale was that when I get it back on the road I will transfer the old owners personalized reg back to him. The problem I have is the guy is pressing me for his plates but I don't know how to retain plates from a car that is not taxed, mot'd or insured and won't be for sometime yet, I have tried contacting the dvla but cannot get to talk to a human on the phone and got a very naff contradicting email response.
Any help/advice is much appreciated.

[Mustard]

Very simple... You can't with all those items missing


If he was that bothered he should have sorted it before he sold / SORNed it

[D34NO87]

How do people retain their plates when they scrap cars?

[Mustard]

D34NO87 said:

How do people retain their plates when they scrap cars?

Again unless it has an Mot and valid tax disc, (or naturally expired tax within 6mths) you can't transfer..... Otherwise all sorts of things would be resurrected to Transfer the in some instances valuable plate