Custom Car Magazine No.536 Hot rods at the Hayride and the Supernats Back Issue

We all know that as of Wednesday 1 October we will no
longer need to display a tax disc in the windscreen of our
cars as tax status will be recorded electronically.
Are you, however, aware that should you sell a vehicle after that
date, the DVLA will automatically cancel the vehicle’s road fund
licence once you have notified them of change of ownership? You will
then receive a refund of any full calendar months’ worth of tax from
the DVLA, just as previously happened if you surrendered a tax disc
for whatever reason.
Technically, that means you will no longer be able to purchase a
vehicle that is currently taxed and drive it home, though in practice,
as the seller will have to notify the DVLA, the tax won’t have been
cancelled in the time it takes you to drive home (hopefully). Problems
may arise if you buy a vehicle towards the end of the month though.
Say you make the purchase on 30 November, and the seller sends
off notification to the DVLA the same day, they should receive it on
Friday 31. Does that mean the road fund licence will be cancelled
from that date, or a few days later when the DVLA get round to
processing it? Also, if they don’t process the ownership change until
the next week they will not refund for the month of November, so
does that mean the vehicle is still taxed for that month? My guess is
not. So if the new owner taxes the vehicle straight away, the DVLA
will have received two payments for taxing the vehicle for the month
of November. As always, it will be us, the motorists who lose out.
You can check both the MoT and taxation status of any vehicle at:
www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk
Dave Biggadyke