My husband sold a car for £50 scrap on 30/12/09. The tax was due to be up on 31/12/09. We informed the DVLA by sending them the slip from the logbook confirming it had been sold for scrap. We moved home in February 2010, and notified the DVLA of the change of address at this time our new car. We received redirected mail from our old address saying we had to tax the above sold car, so we again contacted the DVLA informing them of the change of address and received a letter of acknowledgement on 16/04/10 that we are no longer registered keepers of this car (still to old address).

We thought it was now finished and our acknowledgement letter stated that we should ignore any further reminders from them regarding this vehicle. Our mail re-direction for our old address finished in May 2010. On Saturday our old letting agent called to say we had mail to collect, and found a big pile of debt collection agency letters all related to this above car, including a DVLA letter dated 19/05/2010 including a final notification for an £80 penalty for failure to tax the above car, followed by five debt collection agency letters saying the DVLA has passed the debt to them and they are taking us to court.

Today we have contacted both the DVLA and the debt collection agency. The DVLA say its now nothing to do with them. The debt collection agency says we are liable for the £80 and must pay them! Where do we stand?