I haven't found a way to avoid this. DVLA considers that the sale or transfer of a car happens instantaneously, so both parties pay for the whole transfer month. I'm not sure what happens when a car is sold to a trader ?

The way to avoid this is to take the car off the road, ie SORN it online, on the last day of the month and then sell it on the first of the next month - it must of course be genuinely off the road.

Always been the case that you lose part months, all you can do is sell at the end of a month and buy at the start to minimise losses.

Unless you are in the top VED bands the amounts concerned are hardly worth worrying about when compared to depreciation and other motoring costs, if money's tight get a car in the lowest of bands,

If any new car we buy is registered mid month we ensure that its taxed plus 1 or 2 weeks. Take the Yaris, registered mid March and tax will be due 01 April next year.

Fabia we PX'd was registered April 29th and when we sold it mid March we got a month refund because it was taxed 12 months plus a week.

But compared with depreciation, insurance, fuel and other running costs a couple of weeks VED is sod all in the big picture, about £7.

Edited by skidpan on 15/04/2024 at 20:24

I cannot for the life of me understand why VEHICLE tax (to give it its proper name, since "Road tax" was abolished in 1937, ahem) cannot follow the car, rather than the driver. In Spain, for example, it is levied by the local council (now there's an idea, hey?) and paid in full once a year by the named driver as of 1st January of that year.
Many years ago I sold a car to a workmate and with it the remaining 4 months of the year's local car tax AND insurance, since in Spain as in "most" countries, the insurance is charged to the vehicle.

That used to be the case in the UK with Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) - it was transferred with the car.

Simple. Buy a car, take it home and don't use it until the beginning of next month (SORN it if you want). Tax it and use it (assuming valid insurance and MOT).

DVLA won't know if it was transported on the road or trailer, unless you're VERY unfortunate to be picked up on CCTV. I suspect the authorities couldn't be bothered, as long as the VED is continuous.

The reason that tax can only be for whole months is to do with the IT systems. There is a modern front end, but behind that is a very old mainframe database system.

No doubt. But even in the days of paper tax-discs, VED expired at the end of a calendar month. The only difference (as said above) is that any unexpired tax could be sold on with the car - no longer possible.

I helped a friend buy a car recently - we slightly delayed pickup day to be 1st April. Good and bad with that -

• Good) Didn't loose a months worth of tax if we'd picked up end of March
• Bad) Prices went up 1st April - only by £10 / year though.

PS Was horrified at what you got for £3.5k these days - poor!

My tax renewal is £360. So about £30 a month.

So two month's tax is £60.

Thew only extra amount is £30 - you would have to pay a month anyway.

Don't know how much you paid for the new motor, but a "tax" of £30 on a vehicle change is not worth getting over-excited about.