Buying a car with a private plate that owner wants to keep

[peterh2]

I'm trying to buy a car that currently has a private plate on it. The current owner wants to keep this plate. He needs to put the plate on retention as his new car is 2 months away and he's going to hire a car in the meantime. The car I'm buying will also need to be issued with a number plate?

Does anyone know how easy is this to do and how long will it all take? I was hoping to pick the car up this afternoon until this issue came up.

Many thanks!

[thetapeworm]

I just transferred a plate from a car I'm selling, it took just over a week for the V5, MOT and tax disc to come through but I went to the DVLA office rather than posting it to them, I guess 2 weeks would cover it if you had to allow for post in both directions. Don't forget to factor in getting new plates made up with the form they send back before the V5 comes (MOT, tax disc and plate approval form generally arrives a day or two before the V5 in my experience) - unless they still have the originals and it's going back onto that registration of course.

You could possibly come up with a contract that allows you to buy the car and then take the plate off yourself (at his expense), a V317 form allows you to specify a nominee for the plate but I'm not sure if this just lets them transfer it onto their car or if it also transfers ownership of it.

Edited by thetapeworm on Friday 21st May 15:36

[aeropilot]

He should have thought about it before he put car up for sale, that's what I did. Took car to DVLA office place, got new plate, put old plate on retention cert and drove away after a few hours.
However, I believe you can't do that these days, and there is a delay in getting the new number....?
Do a search, there was a thread about this last year some time as to how long it now takes.

[Mastiff]

PM me and I will email you the relevant form. It will take a week or more, if he takes it to a DVLA office in person, upto 3 weeks + otherwise.

[tr7v8]

I transferred the plate from the 7 onto the Porsche & it took under a week including V5s getting back to me. I owned both cars at the time though. Be warned they do occasionally want to inspect the car.

[Ozzie Osmond]

DVLA can be desperately slow issuing the new V5. Nothing to stop you buying the car without one as it's essentially the seller whose number plate is at risk pending arrival of the new V5.

[LocoBlade]

I bought a car with a private plate on that the owner wanted to keep and hadn't got round to transferring onto retention. The two options were to wait a couple of weeks to do the DVLA transfer before buying the car, or do as I did and gave him a deposit which he agreed would refund to me once I'd transferred the plate back to him.

This worked fine in our case and the car went back onto it's original plates which the original owner had kept (so no need for new plates). Other things in our favour were that we were both regular PH posters so there was an element of trust there, and also a plate that only had real value/interest to the original owner, it meant nothing to me or the car. If the plate was more related to the car than the owner though then I'd be wary of trusting a new owner to transfer it back as once you sell the car to them, there's no comeback if they go back on their word.

[caziques]

Just to add that the car will return to its original plate.

If the car has had a private plate from new it will also have been issued with an normal number, which is what it will go to.

If the car had a standard number when new, then a private plate, it simply goes back to original.

Basically all private plated cars have two registration numbers.

[Paul Drawmer]

caziques said:

Just to add that the car will return to its original plate.

If the car has had a private plate from new it will also have been issued with an normal number, which is what it will go to.

If the car had a standard number when new, then a private plate, it simply goes back to original.

Basically all private plated cars have two registration numbers.

Not sure of that. I registered my GTM as a new car onto a number the DVLA were holding for me. Never saw any mention of any other number.

[sebhaque]

caziques said:

Just to add that the car will return to its original plate.

If the car has had a private plate from new it will also have been issued with an normal number, which is what it will go to.

If the car had a standard number when new, then a private plate, it simply goes back to original.

Basically all private plated cars have two registration numbers.

I was told by the DVLA it was slightly possible that I wouldn't get my original reg plate back after I'd put my plates on, but in both circumstances it went back on the original plate. Still, worth throwing out there I guess.