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DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - 912uk

Has any one taken on the DVLA in Court and won.. Road Tax Sorn Fine.

Summing up the facts….

We had a car that broke down canbus ,ecu failure.. all the nice easy repairs :-/ , NOT!

Anyway the first garage sent off the ECU and they couldn’t fix it.. so it went to another and they did.. then it didn’t work still, so had to wait for a mobile VAG comm.. Guy who was on holiday then he couldn’t fix it and then the original garage had the car towed to another garage who had just moved to a new unit and they sorted the problem but had to send away for parts.. They parked the car up out side their unit on the road on an industrial estate.

It was clamped by the DVLA as it was by now SORN due to the length of the time of repairs!

The garage owner paid the release fee. Then a few days later we as owners got a letter to say we had been driving our car… clearly we had not! It was news to us..infact I didn’t even though the car had been moved to another garage for repairs till this came to light.

We wrote to the DVLA and at first we knew that they would see common sense and either direct the fine to the garage or end the matter there..

OH no! they the DVLA have bounced letters back and forth, until they then put all the work on to us..

“ Get the garage to write a letter to say they where the ones who parked the car on the road “

Now, our ties with this garage have been severed because the bill I was expecting for the car went up by £160. So to be honest I knew the garage where talking advantage by adding it onto my bill their fine ( the clamp release fee )
So It didn’t end well with the garage as I ended up chucking money on the counter and taking my car keys and driving off.. the money I chucked down was less than the bill because I knew and it was clear as day they where taking the pee…

So for me to go in and ask for them to write a letter to hang them selves on a DVLA hook is clearly not going to happen.

I have asked the DVLA on a number of times to look at who paid the DVLA release fee… it will clearly be the owner of the garage..

And that is my point…..

Why would I pay for a release fee of my car when its in the hands of a garage I didn’t even know it was with??

Surely seeing that the garage owner paid the release fee shows it was in their hands!

I wrote to the DVLA to explain this.. eg you look at the facts in front of you. But they are not interested.

I now have a letter from the DVLA who clearly just sent a standard letter pay or be in court..

I am thinking of going to court.. after all I didn’t drive my car as it was able to work!

I didn’t park it out on the road

I didn’t pay the DVLA release Fee the garage owner did.

I feel the DVLA have not listened to the facts and infact have just asked me to do all their work for them.

Should I pay the fine or should I go to court.. If I have to pay the fine I will with out doubt contact BBC watchdog about this in the hope at some time this is featured as an issue.

I feel really angry they can’t see the facts in front of them.. it's bad enough the car has taken 8 months to be repaired ( and it's still got issues now ) we have taken the time by correctly SORN the vehical once the MOT and Tax ran out.. we didn't park it on the road the garage did ( pushed it out waiting for spares )

what would you do?

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - skidpan

As I see it you have 3 options:

Ask the garage to provide a letter confirming it was they who parked the car on the road.

Pay the fine and get on with your life.

Go to court and call the garage as a witness (if that is allowed).

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - old-school-tech

I think it's going to be tricky to get the garage on board with you since you severed your ties with them, Whether the bill was right or wrong you clearly left on bad terms so thats probably not going to be an option.

I also doubt very much that the BBC will be interested since it's not really something that enough of us will experience to warrant making an issue about it.

I do kind of think, whether the car was off the road or not you were having repairs on it with a view to it being back on the road at some point (I assume as soon as it was repaired) and therefore the onus was on you to make sure the tax was renewed when it ran out, Surely you would have had a reminder?

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - 912uk

When the MOT ran out I had to SORN the car..

that was some months back.

I followed the law by the letter. SORN the car until such times as it was fit to be re MOT'd so as to re-gain Road Tax

with the car not being fixed in all that time I couldn't have gained an MOT therefore I couldn't gain Road Tax.. and the circle continues.

The garage only pushed the car out on the road because it was awaiting parts and they needed the space. As soon as the parts arrived they car was fixed, that afternoon it was MOT'd and taxed..?

So you can see why I am very miffed off!!

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - Cris_on_the_gas

You have no case against the DVLA. They saw a vehicle on public road and it was subject to a SORN as I understand from above. They were doing their job.

You are the registered keeper of the vehicle and the vehicle was kept on a public road without valid vehicle excise duty being paid. you as the registered keeper are responsible for this.

However the Garage has a duty of care to you. They have kind of admitted this by paying the release fee. Then by a devious means tried to claw this back from you, that's another matter called fraud. Let's park that for now.

Did you at any time make it clear to the Garage that the vehicle SHOULD NOT be kept on a public road. You would have recieved a reminder to renew tax/SORN so you cannot say that you were not aware.

So you have 2 choices.

1. Put it down to experience and handle the situation better next time.

2. settle with the DVLA providing mitigation if necessary. Then you sue the Garage for neglegence for the losses you have incurred. You might find a strong letter threting court action may suffice, but you may need to go to small claims. If you did not make it clear as above that vehicle must not be stored on road this may work against you as a reasonable person may assume that a customer's car would be taxed and insured.

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - Dwight Van Driver

If you are the keeper of car and the Excise Licence expires and you put it 'off road' then there is an obligation to SORN the vehicle. If this is not done then DVLA have the power to impose a "supplement" for not doing so and will request £80 please. Failure to do so refered to a debt Collection procedure.

Stated that you Sorned the vehicle when the MOT/Excise expired and within the current year so SORN complied with.

However the vehicle was seen on a public road outside Garage without a current Excise Licence - offence and DVLA policy in such cases:

If the OCS not paid then DVLA will institute proceedings at Mags Court for using or keeping a vehicle on a road without an Excise Licence. You will have to convince the Magistrates that your were neither using or keeping and it was the Garage that were doing this. If proceeding to Court then gather all the possible evidence of the Garages involvement with the vehicle at the time of the offence (seen on the road)to plead your case before the Bench .

As stated you may be able to placate DVLA with the letter from the Garage (which may give DVLA power to have a go at the Garage for the offence.)

dvd

Edited by Kalpesh Mistry on 16/06/2015 at 16:43

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - Dwight Van Driver

^^^^^^^ Site fault reported. Also b****ed up my PC have now to sort out.

PS No virus detected on mine

dvd

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - Dwight Van Driver

Thanks K post rectified to what it should have read.

dvd

DVLA Court Case has any one been to court with the - Palcouk

To answer your subject line, the answer is yes, and the details have been posted on this site.

As the reistered owner you are liable for the offence.

Its not the same as a moving traffic motor offence were you are required to provide the driver name/details of who was driving at the time.

So you have two options;

1) Invite them to take you to court, go to court with your evidence (bills etc) stateing that the vehicle was under the control & safe keeping of the garage, and this was an off road location, and they had no authorisation to otherwise use the car.

2) Pay any penalty, then take the garage to small claims to retreive the penalty fees