Change to Road Tax - Do Dealers need to declare SORN?

[hal3210]

I've been reading up on the changes to the Road Tax system in October. I see that Trade Plates will no longer need the paper licence part. I've also been reading that car dealerships will need to either register cars in their own name (adding another owner and delaying getting a new logbook before they can sell the car) or declaring the cars as SORN.

As I understood it, in the past dealers were allowed to delay registering the car until purchased by a buyer. They were allowed to use the vehicle on their Trade Plates for trade purposes (test drives, taking to MOTS etc). When I had a garage in the 1990s, some cars were in stock for over 3 months and I didn't get any hassle for not registering the car in my name yet I've read more recently that the trade yellow slip is only valid for 3 months. Even this seems a bit harsh as I'm sure many cars are advertised for sale for more than 3 months - especially if the car takes a few weeks to prepare before sale.

In a nutshell, what differences will the new system cause to dealerships with Trade Plates? Will they have to SORN or register & tax every car they buy in their name? If a dealer taxes the car, they then aren't allowed to give the tax to the new owner so then they'll presumably have to re-tax the car for the buyer?

Will it cause a problem if a dealer simply sits on the V5 as it were until the car is sold? Also, if declared SORN are you allowed to take the vehicle out on test drives on Trade Plates?

So much conflicting advice seems to be online and I even read about the DVLA trying to prosecute a dealer for not SORNing a car a few years ago when he didn't have to so the DVLA admitted they were in the wrong!

[B'stard Child]

I thought the trade plate issue was they couldn't use them on a SORN'd car??

AFAIK they don't have to declare SORN on cars part exchanged that are in "temporary" ownership - only if they register them in their own name would they have to declare SORN.

If an owner surrenders the VED before part exchange then they just need to declare vehicle has gone to a Motor dealer rather than declare it SORN (I must admit that might cause a few problems when the wrong box is ticked)

[405dogvan]

I've not looked at the fine-print but it's pretty easy to see that this is aimed at stamping-down on 'back street dealers' - e.g. people who trade cars without being a proper trader - and is floated on a lot of nonsense about 'people accidentally driving untaxed cars' which is cobblers...

Surely everyone is going to want to sell a car near the end of a month (no partial refunds) now too - that's going to be fun?

As far as I can see, the seller OR dealer can apply for the tax refund too?

The dealer can obviously use the car under the rules of the Trade Plates scheme (which I've not seen for a while - have they changed too?) but if they need to use it outside of the scheme, they will have to register the car in-order to tax it and if they have the car for a longer period, it will have to be SORNed I guess...

I'm not sure the changes make sense tbh - ditching the tax disc was one thing, skimming a lot of money in 'duplicate road tax' is another thing entirely...