Selling Advice

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Thu 30 May 2019 12:38
Selling Advice - Durelli_tyres

I'm in the process of selling a car to a friend and wanted some opinions on timing.

The car is insured by me until Tuesday June 4th.

The new owner plans to pick the car up on Sunday June 2nd.

If I notify the DVLA the car is sold now I can claim tax back from June onwards? Would the new owner need to insure the car from June 1st?

Would it be OK for the car to be insured by new owner and be kept at my address for a couple of days.

I don't plan to cancel my insurance as that will incur a charge, I will just let it expire.

Can I claim tax back now and keep the car until June 2nd, notify DVLA then? The new owner will tax it from June 1st anyway.

Thanks for any advice.

D

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Thu 30 May 2019 13:05
Selling Advice - RT

The only way to avoid both of you paying VED for June, is for you to SORN it today or tomorrow, ie in May, and keep it off the road until the new owner has taxed and insured it.

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Thu 30 May 2019 15:11
Selling Advice - catsdad

There's been a lot of advice over the years on this area and despite its being over a weekend and off the road I don't believe its possible to avoid one of you losing out unless you SORN as RT says and reverse it soon after..

However be careful. We did that for a sale within the family as we waited to sell the old car before taxing and insuring the new one for which we posted off the SORN. As luck would have it we sold the old one right away while the SORN was in the post.

I called the DVLA to see how to tax and unSORN the new car immediately.. However the SORN'd car was then in limbo as the DVLA hadn't received the form in the post but couldn't promise to intercept it or cancel it, or put a marker on the file.

Their advice was it was probably OK to tax the new car but to check online daily to ensure the SORN wasn't enacted. And then call them if it was!

As it happened it was OK but it was a faff to keep checking and with ANPR cameras sniffing about I'm not sure if we were at risk of being pulled over.

So if it were me in your situation I'd just suck up the double payment by effecting the sale/tax/insurance on the relevant day and either you lose out by paying for June or the buyer does by paying from May. Nuts but there you are.

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Thu 30 May 2019 15:51
Selling Advice - Wee Willie Winkie

You only get a refund for full months. So if you leave it until June 2nd you'll pay for June, as will the new owner when they tax it. Double bubble for the authorities.

I'd SORN it online today or tomorrow then the new buyer can tax it themselves on the 2nd.

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Thu 30 May 2019 16:03
Selling Advice - catsdad

Ah yes I remember now, the other complication for us was that the SORN'd car wasn't yet in our name so we had to use the post. Online the OP should avoid the issue we faced.

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Thu 30 May 2019 16:05
Selling Advice - RichardW

I tried this, but there is a window (might be 5 days) where once you have SORN'd it online you can't do anything else for 5 days, so it might be too late to avoid the double month. Gits.

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