Erasing drivers on registration document - so easy

[Darth Viper]

Here's an interesting phenomena - bought a car a while back, didn't have a registration document with it, and so previous owner was going to forward it to me. Anyway, he decided he'd lost it (some time later), so I sent in for a replacement, stating when I purchassed it etc etc. Made a mistake on the date I bought it, but got the document back with my details.

Then, the previous owner found the original, sent it to me, and due to a date error, one of the previous owners (on the original document) had been errased (basically, I'd said I'd purchassed the car before the previous owner). So the new document recorded one less previous owner.

So, does this mean if you have a car with lots of previous owners, you can just say you purchassed it at an earlier date when registering it, and thus erase the existance of as many previous owners as you like?

This was a genuine mistake, but would seem to be open for abuse.

[8Pack]

Dunno! but it speaks volumes for the quality of their records doesn't it? And they want to use those to prosecute US?

[Darth Viper]

Also wondering what happens to any convictions, whether pending or otherwise, on those previous owners?

[randlemarcus]

In theory, if your pen slipped, and you wrote 1990 instead of 1998 for the purchase date, then any NIPs left hanging around the system, or unpaid parking fines would, de facto, become yours.

Of course what you now need to do is wait say three months, for the DVLA system to tombstone any of the old records, then write to them pointing out the date error, and watching to see if they restore the previous owner.
You'll be no worse off than at present, and you may have a perfectly valid V5 with fewer owners than it should have.

[cptsideways]

Could we register our cars as being previously owned by the SCP's then un regsister them again when they catch on