buying a car, owner wants to keep plate.

[Medic-one]

I've only bought 3 cars in the UK so far and always done it the same way :

- get info via email/phone.
- take train, go look at car, take train home.
- take out insurance.
- pick up car couple days later, from when insurance starts.

However now if he wants to keep his private plate how do things go, do I have to buy a new plate (1998 car) from the dvla first ?
And I can get that without being the owner first?

And can I get a insurance quote without having a Reg?

[sday12]

Keep private reg on car when you buy.
Get him to apply for transfer and new reg.

When done he will tell you new reg no.
Put it on your car, tell insurance co.

[Andyuk911]

Simple job at the local dvla office

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/PersonalisedR...

[mcflurry]

Get seller to sort it before buying the car.
(or run the risk that you'll keep the plate)

[B.J.W]

mcflurry said:

Get seller to sort it before buying the car.
(or run the risk that you'll keep the plate)

This.

Seller needs to put his plate on retention. A new plate will be allocated to his/her car, at which point there are no issues (+ he will have paid for the new plates to be made up)

[Old Gregg]

B.J.W said:

This.

Seller needs to put his plate on retention. A new plate will be allocated to his/her car, at which point there are no issues (+ he will have paid for the new plates to be made up)

Yep, I did it a while ago and it's easy enough.

[Medic-one]

Cheers guys.

Would he get to choose the plate or does he just get allocated one?

Seller is a fellow gto club member so was just wondering if there's a list he/i could choose from, wouldn't mind paying a bit for something that looks nice.

[marshalla]

He gets it registered with an age-related plate of DVLA's choosing - unless he has another number he's willing to transfer to you.

You can then "buy" another number from DVLA and put that on the car if you want to.

[tr7v8]

Just done this on the Jeep. The easiest way as others have said is to get the current owner to transfer it back to its old plate. Then Medic One can buy it, Medic1 can buy a plate & transfer to the car. Maidstone DLO are very quick each swap was taking 2-3 working days.