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What do YOU want to ask the DVLA?

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Lovely.

At least that's cleared up all the confusion about how its going to work and now we can all stride forward, confident in the knowledge that the whole population understands the new system and all the mechanisms for Trade, Disabled Exemption, imports, refunds, Cherished Transfers etc.

 

The thought that they actually had a meeting (or twenty) and decided that this would be a fantastic idea is incomprehensible to me.

 

When are we getting the DVLA interview, James?

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Full interview with DVLA chief exec is in the next issue. We've taken your questions and put them to him. It's a revealing read...

We sent the issue to the printers last night. It'll be with you late next week or more likely around 18th. Let us know your thoughts when you read it

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Accepting that it is the Daily Mail (so it must be true, right?), at least, as you say, the message is starting to spread.

 

However.

 

Interesting last sentence: ‘It’s easy to check if your vehicle is taxed by heading online at the Vehicle Enquiry Service, making this the first step for anyone planning to sell their vehicle and avoid the risk of fines.’

 

Why, if it is your own car, would you need to 'head online' to check if you have taxed it or not? And there, again, is the assumption that everyone has internet access.

 
Nevertheless, I'll await the interview with much interest and look forward to finding out how much slack the DVLA are going to cut us in the trade.
And how we are to be rewarded for carrying out their training for them.
 

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We also no longer need the paper licence on the trade plates, something positive perhaps, but as I said earlier I would much prefer that trade plates be scrapped altogether and be replaced with a temporary exemption for trade cars to be moved without the need for tax

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Interesting, as I have been asked this question today.......dealers still in the dark:

 

Have you got clarity from the DVLA on what is to happen on

October 1st re Road Fund Licences?

 

We have spoken or tried to get clarity from one of their

people today to see what is to happen and we have been told

that as of October 1st, any tax that is on a vehicle at

Dealerships / Showrooms etc - if that vehicle is NOT registered

to the Dealer - it becomes void - so the car will have to be taxed

again if sold - the customer service spokesperson we spoke to said it has

been factored in to their costs that is anticipated to provide

tens of millions of pounds into the coffers as the new system is

not being rolled out until September 30th / October 1st and it becomes

statue then - so no overlap, and any car not registered or SORN by the

dealer the fine is to be increased to £1600 per vehicle.

 

The spokesperson said all cars at Dealerships will either have to be sorn

by the dealer or registered to the dealer thus adding owners to the V5

and have factored in a two to three week time delay with the amount of

log books being sent it for changes, BUT a car cannot be taxed on line

without a log book - thus preventing the sales of any of those cars if

the Dealers have gone for the register option.

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Thanks for posting that, I must say it's slightly shocking rust they are putting so much on the door of us traders , and what are we getting in return ? Nothing!

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Crash.

 

Burn.

 

 

...Our fault.

 

Don't want to say "I told you so" but I can't see it going any other way.

Already problems in Northern Ireland after the recent 'simple' transfer of data over from Coleraine to Swansea, so something this big is certain to cause issues.

 

As me old mate Puff Daddy (feat. Notorious B.I.G) - a modern beat combo, I'm led to believe - so succinctly put it

 

There's times in my life where I just
I just wanna run away, I just
I just wish the pain would stop
I don't wanna cry no more
I wish the pain would go away

 

Poetry.

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Reading Phillip's post it sounds like a bit of daylight robbery is going on. So any car that is taxed and passed to trade will become 'un-taxed' on the 1st October with NO refund given. Despite the trade not being able to claim a refund on a tax disc the fact that it is tax'ed may have added value onto the price of the car,for example  a 4x4 or sports car taken in part ex in July with best part of a years road tax costing £475, a dealer may have allowed an extra £300 in p/x because the tax had a 'value' to it. Come October that value is wiped out. Not a problem if DVLA has told us 12 months ago this would be the case but it seems a little wrong that something can become worthless overnight with such little notice. 

 

Would be interesting if someone legally challenged the DVLA to recover the loss in value. Does the owner of the car own the tax, the last registered keeper, the DVLA?  Â£millions worth of tax will become invalid and worthless overnight.

 

Imagine if a car company pulled the same trick and said warranties were valid for cars owned by the trade? It seems the same thing to me

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It's crazy really is, but the refund will go back to the last registered keeper they say, let's see how that works in practice

As traders we should have been given somthing back , either abolish trade plates and let traders drive untaxed while the car is in trade, or exempt us altogether from having to sorn therefore taking away the fear of fines for untaxed cars sitting in dealer compounds

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Yes & No, dealers can't claim back road tax unless the car is registered to themselves. I'm guessing after 1st October once any demo's or pre reg cars are sold the dealer will automatically be refunded.

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We have ordered 2 new sets of trade plates to add to the 2 sets we already own, to ensure we can continue to allow unaccompanied test drives (which is allowed on our insurance policy) at the moment normally two sets of plates are all that are required as a third of our stock will have some level of road tax left on it. These plates will also cover road tests for our Service Centre as without checking every car to ensure it is road taxed on the DVLA website you have no other way on ensuring you are legally covered and insured. Funnily enough my application for these extra plates were returned the other day as I had put in my application too early, instead of 10 days before the start date required I sent it 30days before, so penalised now for being organised!!!!

 

We have had some feedback from DVLA but mostly it is about what is now on the website. Obviously the DVLA don't understand how many cars are road taxed on behalf of customers every week, what will happen if it is left to the customer themselves to do?, I think you will see MORE untaxed cars on the road as customers forget to organise their own road tax before collecting their used car and guess who will be blamed!!!!!!

 

Now we are only a small Car Dealer with about 50-60 cars normally in stock, however a quick count of the value of tax discs we have on stock cars we have that we sell along with the car amounts to £2300! This has real value to us as we build a cars sakes deal, negotiating what is left on the customers part ex also comes into it!

 

My biggest fear is the 'transfer to trade' status, will this change? There are strong rumours that instead of 'transfer to trade' we have two choices, road tax the car and register it in our name, which puts another owner on the car, so not only do you have the cost of the tax but also the devaluing of the car based on owners OR we have to SORN it, which means it should not be used on the public highway so extra trade plates are required to drive these!

 

The ONLY saving grace seems to be the fact that we will no longer have the admin of registering all road taxed cars onto the MID, or have I missed something?

 

So we have the Scottish Independence Referendum in Sept, the DVLA debacle in Oct and FCA registration in Dec.........I remember when I had time to sell cars :-/

Jim

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Hey James!

It's the 18th.

You got that interview with the top bloke from the 'It-ain't broke-but-we're gonna-fix-it-anyway' dept of the DVLA please?

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OK

Got a copy.

Read the article.

Still don't get it.

I must have missed a memo or something, because it just is not clear how it is all going to work - I mean, all different types of transaction, transfer, payments, responsibilities.... everything!

 

There's a full answer about DVLA selling data to parking companies ( which, frankly, is of no interest to this discussion) and loads of relevant questions that were just not answered. Many words were used, but nothing was actually said.

For example:

Q: How do you tax a vehicle not registered to you because you can't do it online?

A: Do it online

 

Q: Will you change the Trade Plate system?

A: No. But if we do....

 

Seriously? 

tbh, James, i think you were just fobbed off with a load of marketing gobbledegook. Here's some crispy nuggets:

 

multi channel business

digital deliverables

a much more digital landscape

 

We (or maybe just me..?) would have liked some intelligible, actual answers and advice.

October 1st is not far away and we do not have enough information.

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I see what your saying green, but I think James did well considering, it's a bit like PMs question time , you have to read between it

Digital v5 will be a good thing I think, but for him to say sitting down with the customer to buy tax should be part of any GOOD sales process shows he doesn't understand the nature of our business

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We can't help it if the guy is media trained and doesn't want to give straight answers... We tried and tried to get the answers we know everyone wanted but he was hard work, according to Batch.

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