DVLA have lost all my documents! V55/5
Discussion
Hello.
I have been restoring a Porsche 356 from the USA for the last 3 years, and a few weeks ago it was ready for its first MOT. Its been a fight getting this far, especially rounding up bits of unobtainable trim from all points of the globe, and paying the inevitable silly Porsche prices for the smallest and most insignificant of things. £40 for a Recaro seat knob anyone?
Anyway, I digress somewhat.
I got the car through its MOT, and that night sat down with the wonderful DVLA form V55/5. Some Googling will show that problems when filling in this form, are not uncommon, so I took my time and worked through it. I think that I managed to fill it in properly, but that is an evening of my life that I won't get back!
Anyway, I was obliged to send the original Georgia state title document (kind of the USA V5, and has the date of first registration), the NOVA registration number, on the customs and excise paperwork, which lets the DVLA know that all the correct taxes have been paid, the Porsche original Certificate of Authenticity (Which confusingly states is not for dating purposes, but has the build date of the car on), the MOT, the Insurance Certificate, A proof of address, the original receipt for the car that shows that it belongs to me, a cheque for £55, plus any supporting bits of paperwork I could think of which might speed the process.
All this was sent off, first class, recorded delivery, tracked and signed for on the 29th of March, and was delivered and signed for the next day at the DVLA.
A month goes by.....
So, I call them up to find out what is what. The Byzantynely complex telephone system defeats me after 20 mins or so, of button pressing and getting back to the start, so I write them an email enquiry. They write back to me an hour or so later, to inform me that they have no record of my application, and that it might be best if I start again, and re apply!!!!
Oh dear.
Right, now I have some problems. The DVLA will under no circumstances accept copies or scans of quite a few of the above items. A new CofA from Porsche will cost me another £65...
A few subsequent emails go back and forth, from 3 separate people at their end, none of whom seem to have spoken to one another, and I have several separate case numbers.
My car is at a trimming shop approx. 220 miles from my house, and now that the trimming guy has finished with it, understandably he needs it gone so he can get the next car in. I would have liked to have driven it back home, but without a registration number, it looks like it is going to cost me about £300 just to transport the car back to my house.
I have been through the import registering process a few years ago for a couple of old motorcycles, and back in the days of the old local vehicle licensing offices it used to take only a few days from the start to the end of the whole process.
These days, it all seems like a complete nightmare.
I have been restoring a Porsche 356 from the USA for the last 3 years, and a few weeks ago it was ready for its first MOT. Its been a fight getting this far, especially rounding up bits of unobtainable trim from all points of the globe, and paying the inevitable silly Porsche prices for the smallest and most insignificant of things. £40 for a Recaro seat knob anyone?
Anyway, I digress somewhat.
I got the car through its MOT, and that night sat down with the wonderful DVLA form V55/5. Some Googling will show that problems when filling in this form, are not uncommon, so I took my time and worked through it. I think that I managed to fill it in properly, but that is an evening of my life that I won't get back!
Anyway, I was obliged to send the original Georgia state title document (kind of the USA V5, and has the date of first registration), the NOVA registration number, on the customs and excise paperwork, which lets the DVLA know that all the correct taxes have been paid, the Porsche original Certificate of Authenticity (Which confusingly states is not for dating purposes, but has the build date of the car on), the MOT, the Insurance Certificate, A proof of address, the original receipt for the car that shows that it belongs to me, a cheque for £55, plus any supporting bits of paperwork I could think of which might speed the process.
All this was sent off, first class, recorded delivery, tracked and signed for on the 29th of March, and was delivered and signed for the next day at the DVLA.
A month goes by.....
So, I call them up to find out what is what. The Byzantynely complex telephone system defeats me after 20 mins or so, of button pressing and getting back to the start, so I write them an email enquiry. They write back to me an hour or so later, to inform me that they have no record of my application, and that it might be best if I start again, and re apply!!!!
Oh dear.
Right, now I have some problems. The DVLA will under no circumstances accept copies or scans of quite a few of the above items. A new CofA from Porsche will cost me another £65...
A few subsequent emails go back and forth, from 3 separate people at their end, none of whom seem to have spoken to one another, and I have several separate case numbers.
My car is at a trimming shop approx. 220 miles from my house, and now that the trimming guy has finished with it, understandably he needs it gone so he can get the next car in. I would have liked to have driven it back home, but without a registration number, it looks like it is going to cost me about £300 just to transport the car back to my house.
I have been through the import registering process a few years ago for a couple of old motorcycles, and back in the days of the old local vehicle licensing offices it used to take only a few days from the start to the end of the whole process.
These days, it all seems like a complete nightmare.
Chewykneeslider said:
The DVLA will under no circumstances accept copies or scans of quite a few of the above items. A new CofA from Porsche will cost me another £65...
On that specific one, have they said that a copy will be an issue? That is, how would they know whether a good colour copy is not what Porsche send out?Reason I ask is that I recently had to send proof of manufacture date to get my V5 updated for VED exemption and they said they were quite happy to have just a copy, presumably because they don't send it back afterwards. I got a certificate from Vauxhall showing the month of manufacture and just sent them a colour photocopy of it. I know it's not quite the same situation, just seems a bit weird that for something proving date of manufacture that they seem to have different rules.
took me "11" attempts to register an import, DVLA just sent my paperwork back to me for no reason what so ever, all docs present, forms complete correctly, Spent a small fortune sending and re sending via registered post!
DVLA, Customs and VOSA have their computers linked but won't communicate to each other, the result, we suffer.
Attached to my final submission was a threatening letter which stated legal action to recover unwarrented postage costs if the docs were returned again unprocessed.
I had the same concerns with losing the original docs going to and from Swansea.
To make things worse, i got my new V5C but it had the wrong VIN number which then had to be sent back, but i could get my car on the road whilst that admin cock up was being sorted.
DVLA, Customs and VOSA have their computers linked but won't communicate to each other, the result, we suffer.
Attached to my final submission was a threatening letter which stated legal action to recover unwarrented postage costs if the docs were returned again unprocessed.
I had the same concerns with losing the original docs going to and from Swansea.
To make things worse, i got my new V5C but it had the wrong VIN number which then had to be sent back, but i could get my car on the road whilst that admin cock up was being sorted.
Edited by whiteonyx on Tuesday 2nd May 09:05
After they sent back my paperwork for the 4th time it was sent to the wrong address and so lost.
All I had was copies and they excepted them with a covering letter, no problem and did get a V5.
If they send it back more than 4 times you will get one person fixed to your case so can get better.
A real pain but did get there.
What does the post office say for who signed for the letter?
All I had was copies and they excepted them with a covering letter, no problem and did get a V5.
If they send it back more than 4 times you will get one person fixed to your case so can get better.
A real pain but did get there.
What does the post office say for who signed for the letter?
I had a strange one recently.
Our "Mr Bean" mini has been on the road for just over 2 years. A month ago I recieved a letter from DVLA telling me thee was "an anomoly with the car. Did I still have it and when did I buy it?"
I explained that I bought it as an unfinished project and until I had MOTd it, did not register it in my name, hence the gap between buying a pile of bits and taking it for an MOT. I am thinking I may have an issue with them trying to claim a potential fine for SORN from that far back? Will wait and see.
I tried to SORN a car I bought at Auction recently but didn't have a V5C with it. Website wouldn't let me and told me to apply by post. When I eventually got the form there will be a gap while I waited for the V5C turning up and not being able to declare SORN. I did have it insured while being stored though. INter esting to see what they will try and get out of me...
Our "Mr Bean" mini has been on the road for just over 2 years. A month ago I recieved a letter from DVLA telling me thee was "an anomoly with the car. Did I still have it and when did I buy it?"
I explained that I bought it as an unfinished project and until I had MOTd it, did not register it in my name, hence the gap between buying a pile of bits and taking it for an MOT. I am thinking I may have an issue with them trying to claim a potential fine for SORN from that far back? Will wait and see.
I tried to SORN a car I bought at Auction recently but didn't have a V5C with it. Website wouldn't let me and told me to apply by post. When I eventually got the form there will be a gap while I waited for the V5C turning up and not being able to declare SORN. I did have it insured while being stored though. INter esting to see what they will try and get out of me...
OK, so time for an update...
I took the advice of the BB, and used the form on the DLVA website to contact them and explain my situation, I used the case number which they had used on all their previous communications with me. I had included scans of the V55/5 that I had filled out all that time ago.
Since I sent the application, the original insurance certificate I had sent has expired, and I had been emailed a new one by Hagerty insurance.
I explained that all my documents had been lost, even though the Royal Mail had obviously proved that they had been delivered to the DLVA, so, since all the original documents required to get an age related registration number for a tax exempt USA import had been lost, then I was going to submit electronically everything I had which was in any way relevant to the situation.
Because you can't actually send an email to them, you have to use the form on the website, and you can only attach one file at a time to any correspondence. Resourcefully, I created a PDF file, and attached 13 separate documents to it, and I was then able to submit it on the form. However, there was a 3Mb size limit on attachments, so I went through the process again and sent two attachments with 6 and 7 documents each time.
They don't seem to want to make any of this easy. I did mention that I haven't got any further information that what I have sent them so if this won't do, then through no fault of my own, I appear to have a very expensive garage ornament rather than a nice car, as I had hoped.
All this went on Wednesday (5 weeks after the whole charade started).
Around teatime on Thursday I had an acknowledgement email back from the DVLA saying that they apologise for the inconvenience caused, and that they have passed all the information relating to my case on to the first registration team (Who else might have been needing to see all this is anyone's guess) and that someone will contact me in the next few days...
Watch this space!
I took the advice of the BB, and used the form on the DLVA website to contact them and explain my situation, I used the case number which they had used on all their previous communications with me. I had included scans of the V55/5 that I had filled out all that time ago.
Since I sent the application, the original insurance certificate I had sent has expired, and I had been emailed a new one by Hagerty insurance.
I explained that all my documents had been lost, even though the Royal Mail had obviously proved that they had been delivered to the DLVA, so, since all the original documents required to get an age related registration number for a tax exempt USA import had been lost, then I was going to submit electronically everything I had which was in any way relevant to the situation.
Because you can't actually send an email to them, you have to use the form on the website, and you can only attach one file at a time to any correspondence. Resourcefully, I created a PDF file, and attached 13 separate documents to it, and I was then able to submit it on the form. However, there was a 3Mb size limit on attachments, so I went through the process again and sent two attachments with 6 and 7 documents each time.
They don't seem to want to make any of this easy. I did mention that I haven't got any further information that what I have sent them so if this won't do, then through no fault of my own, I appear to have a very expensive garage ornament rather than a nice car, as I had hoped.
All this went on Wednesday (5 weeks after the whole charade started).
Around teatime on Thursday I had an acknowledgement email back from the DVLA saying that they apologise for the inconvenience caused, and that they have passed all the information relating to my case on to the first registration team (Who else might have been needing to see all this is anyone's guess) and that someone will contact me in the next few days...
Watch this space!
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