continuous insurance enforcement
Discussion
My wife's had a CIE prosecution notice today from an alleged incident on 12th Sept 2019 when her car was identified on the database as not having insurance.
In April last year we changed her reg plate to a private one, and also changed this with the insurance company. It appears though that the DVLA change did not go through, and my wife didn't realise she'd not received the new V5 with the new reg on it. We only realised at insurance renewal 01.01.2019, at which point we started the new insurance with the original reg plate on it as that's what DVLA had.
The prosecution notice says we should have received 2no other letters (advisory letter and penalty letter), but we've had nothing else through, only the prosecution letter today almost 6 months after the incident.
We did have a paid insurance policy on the vehicle in question, but under the registration plate we thought was registered to it, and not the one that was actually on it. Therefore we flagged as the vehicle being uninsured. My wife's never even had points/a parking ticket, this was a genuine oversight.
The prosecution is not for driving whilst uninsured, just for not having continuous insurance (which we would have had the DVLA reg change gone through). I get this is our fault for not following up and making sure we got the V5 back, but my wife on maternity leave and me working away, we simply forgot.
Does anyone think it might be worth appealing at this stage (would mean a court date), on the basis we did have a paid policy, but didn't have the correct reg on the insurance form.
Also, any idea of the fine she'd likely receive if pleading guilty / not guilty?
thankyou!!
In April last year we changed her reg plate to a private one, and also changed this with the insurance company. It appears though that the DVLA change did not go through, and my wife didn't realise she'd not received the new V5 with the new reg on it. We only realised at insurance renewal 01.01.2019, at which point we started the new insurance with the original reg plate on it as that's what DVLA had.
The prosecution notice says we should have received 2no other letters (advisory letter and penalty letter), but we've had nothing else through, only the prosecution letter today almost 6 months after the incident.
We did have a paid insurance policy on the vehicle in question, but under the registration plate we thought was registered to it, and not the one that was actually on it. Therefore we flagged as the vehicle being uninsured. My wife's never even had points/a parking ticket, this was a genuine oversight.
The prosecution is not for driving whilst uninsured, just for not having continuous insurance (which we would have had the DVLA reg change gone through). I get this is our fault for not following up and making sure we got the V5 back, but my wife on maternity leave and me working away, we simply forgot.
Does anyone think it might be worth appealing at this stage (would mean a court date), on the basis we did have a paid policy, but didn't have the correct reg on the insurance form.
Also, any idea of the fine she'd likely receive if pleading guilty / not guilty?
thankyou!!
As you appear to have fit a different registration plate onto the car without any authority from DVLA to do so, I’m not sure you have much of a defence to the prosecution. In fact you might have to consider yourself lucky that there isn’t another criminal charge relating to not displaying the correct number plates.
Your only hope is that you have proof that you had confirmation from DVLA for the plate change (eg completion of the instant online process) and there was an admin error at DVLA. If you did it by post and received the DVLA authorisation form to get a plate made up then you should also be good, even if the V5 never subsequently arrived.
Your only hope is that you have proof that you had confirmation from DVLA for the plate change (eg completion of the instant online process) and there was an admin error at DVLA. If you did it by post and received the DVLA authorisation form to get a plate made up then you should also be good, even if the V5 never subsequently arrived.
As Chris said, I think it will hang on what you told DVLA and whether you can prove any confirmation from them. If you can then it should be fairly cut-and-dried. If not then it'll be more complex.
(IANAL, someone more clever will be along any minute now to say that I am wrong, YMMV etc etc etc).
(IANAL, someone more clever will be along any minute now to say that I am wrong, YMMV etc etc etc).
If you did the plate change online you will have received email confirmation of the change. If you have kept this you should be in the clear, however if you didn't receive the email you didn't complete the online application correctly so you were basically uninsured for the period and had the wrong plates on the car.
Cylon2007 said:
If you did the plate change online you will have received email confirmation of the change. If you have kept this you should be in the clear, however if you didn't receive the email you didn't complete the online application correctly so you were basically uninsured for the period and had the wrong plates on the car.
Incorrect. The vehicle was insured albeit under a different registration number.chrisch77 said:
As you appear to have fit a different registration plate onto the car without any authority from DVLA to do so, I’m not sure you have much of a defence to the prosecution.
That's not what she's being prosecuted for. She's being prosecuted for a breach of CIE rules, having a car taxed but not insured. But it was insured. It was insured on the wrong reg number, but the car itself was still insured. Any claim would have been paid, once the error had been explained to insurers. Legally, it's no different to the insurers having the reg number wrong by a letter, or transposed letters. You just need to explain the situation to them, and to your insurers, and get insurers to issue a letter of indemnity confirming they were insuring the car, even though they were covering it on the incorrect reg number. .
TwigtheWonderkid said:
chrisch77 said:
As you appear to have fit a different registration plate onto the car without any authority from DVLA to do so, I’m not sure you have much of a defence to the prosecution.
That's not what she's being prosecuted for. She's being prosecuted for a breach of CIE rules, having a car taxed but not insured. But it was insured. It was insured on the wrong reg number, but the car itself was still insured. Any claim would have been paid, once the error had been explained to insurers. Legally, it's no different to the insurers having the reg number wrong by a letter, or transposed letters. You just need to explain the situation to them, and to your insurers, and get insurers to issue a letter of indemnity confirming they were insuring the car, even though they were covering it on the incorrect reg number. .
sc0tt said:
Cylon2007 said:
If you did the plate change online you will have received email confirmation of the change. If you have kept this you should be in the clear, however if you didn't receive the email you didn't complete the online application correctly so you were basically uninsured for the period and had the wrong plates on the car.
Incorrect. The vehicle was insured albeit under a different registration number.carlshton said:
We only realised at insurance renewal 01.01.2019, at which point we started the new insurance with the original reg plate on it as that's what DVLA had.
What made you realise the DVLA info was wrong at that point? It seems slightly odd to switch back to the old reg rather then fixing the DVLA issue - did you put the old plates back on?
Edited by Sheepshanks on Wednesday 4th March 13:34
TwigtheWonderkid said:
That's not what she's being prosecuted for. She's being prosecuted for a breach of CIE rules, having a car taxed but not insured. But it was insured. It was insured on the wrong reg number, but the car itself was still insured. Any claim would have been paid, once the error had been explained to insurers. Legally, it's no different to the insurers having the reg number wrong by a letter, or transposed letters.
You just need to explain the situation to them, and to your insurers, and get insurers to issue a letter of indemnity confirming they were insuring the car, even though they were covering it on the incorrect reg number. .
Exactly this. You just need to explain the situation to them, and to your insurers, and get insurers to issue a letter of indemnity confirming they were insuring the car, even though they were covering it on the incorrect reg number. .
If your insurer will provide a letter confirming that the vehicle, despite having the wrong reg number displayed, would have still been covered under the policy then you had insurance so the offence goes away.
Psycho Warren said:
speedking31 said:
Did you put plates with the private reg on the car? How did you get them made up?
Are you really that naive??It takes seconds to find a place that will do you a set of plates with no V5 cash in hand.
Plates that get made up without docs won’t have the bs number or makers website though, and therefore will be illegal
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff