Buying a SORN'd car

J0hnb0y

J0hnb0y

J0hnb0y

Associate
Joined
25 Oct 2006
Posts
587
Location
London
Hi all,

Anybody know what I need to do to drive away a SORN'd vehicle? Obviously it has no tax so do I need to purchase an insurance premium then tax the car after this in order to drive it legally?

I'm buying an Octavia VRS tomorrow. 80,000 petrol. It was recommended to get some new rear calipers at the last MOT. Sounds like a good buy for 2.5k though.

Cheers
 
J0hnb0y said:
Obviously it has no tax so do I need to purchase an insurance premium then tax the car after this in order to drive it legally?
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Yes. You can't drive it until you tax it, so you'll need to find a convenient post office or arrange it beforehand. You can use a temporary (i.e. Day Insure) policy to tax it if need be, although some post offices can be a bit hesitant about accepting them.
 
I know what brookert is saying, the op wont be able to test drive the car before hand. Its abit of a risk when you can find a car already on the road, have a test drive before parting with any cash
 
Brookert said:
Does not compute? :o

I always thought it's better to sell/buy a car fixed and roadworthy, than try to knock the price down because x and y need doing.
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You have to SORN a car now if it's not insured. Because most people who are selling their car are doing so because they've bought a new one, and subsequently transferred the insurance, the cars they are selling shouldn't be taxed.

So, expect a rapidly growing number of cars for sale with no tax on them as time progresses and people catch up to the rules...
 
Lashout_UK said:
You have to SORN a car now if it's not insured. Because most people who are selling their car are doing so because they've bought a new one, and subsequently transferred the insurance, the cars they are selling shouldn't be taxed.

So, expect a rapidly growing number of cars for sale with no tax on them as time progresses and people catch up to the rules...
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ah gotcha. I had a grace period on my insurance where I had my new car and the one I wanted to sell on my policy for x number of days, then a charge for so many days after that.
 
Aye that's the one. I'm buying the car off a friend and have been in the car a fair bit. He's gone and acquired an RS6 so cancelled insurance etc and declared SORN. I think I'll be buying an insurance policy first and then present at the post office to get tax and be legal etc.

For the purposes of insurance do I need to send a notice to DVLA in order to transfer the car to my name? The car will be put under my name for an annual insurance policy. How quick is it to transfer ownership? This is all rather new to me. I've always been given old cars lol
 
[TW]Fox;23571556 said:
What a bizarre post. If the seller has already purchased a new car unless he keeps his old car insured as well he is legally obliged to SORN it :confused:
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I just thought everybody kept their old car insured to sell? My insurer allowed me to have 2 cars insured for a while, would be much easier to sell a car that way.
 
J0hnb0y said:
Aye that's the one. I'm buying the car off a friend and have been in the car a fair bit. He's gone and acquired an RS6 so cancelled insurance etc and declared SORN. I think I'll be buying an insurance policy first and then present at the post office to get tax and be legal etc.

For the purposes of insurance do I need to send a notice to DVLA in order to transfer the car to my name? The car will be put under my name for an annual insurance policy. How quick is it to transfer ownership? This is all rather new to me. I've always been given old cars lol
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You just send off the V5 for transfer of keeper as normal, it's not hugely critical to insurance that its done instantly.
General sequence will be, get insurance for car in your name, go to post office with insurance certificate, get tax, drive away :p

Biggest hassle is getting an insurer that can email or fax a certificate to you instead of having to wait for the post, and even if you get one as someone else mentioned some post offices can be fussy.
 
Brookert said:
I just thought everybody kept their old car insured to sell? My insurer allowed me to have 2 cars insured for a while, would be much easier to sell a car that way.
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No, this isn't normal practice. No MOT might be an issue (depending on the car) but it's not really reasonable to expect to buy a private car that is taxed these days with the way legislation is now.
 
G-Man said:
Biggest hassle is getting an insurer that can email or fax a certificate to you instead of having to wait for the post, and even if you get one as someone else mentioned some post offices can be fussy.
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Shouldn't you just be able print one off from your insurer if its been done online? Probably wise to anyways and carry it in the glove box if you're planning to drive around cos it takes a couple of days for the reg to go on the MID database so every police car with ANPR will try clocking you for no insurance until then.

I bought a shed on a SORN and disabled tax a couple of years ago, had to go to the local DVLA office to tax it because it needed the change of class doing at the same time and they had no problems with the print out of an insurance cert I'd just bought online.

You can get proof of an MOT online with the cars reg # and the reference # on a v5 - post office will accept a print out of this as well so long as its in date. http://motinfo.direct.gov.uk/internet/jsp/ECSID-Internet-Status-Request.jsp
 
Buying a car is going to become a pain with this new rule.

"Can I take it for a test drive?"
"Sure, if you tax and insure it first"

:(
 
Shouldn't you just be able print one off from your insurer if its been done online? Probably wise to anyways and carry it in the glove box if you're planning to drive around cos it takes a couple of days for the reg to go on the MID database so every police car with ANPR will try clocking you for no insurance until then.
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You can but post offices can be quite fussy about it, even though they shouldn't be. Just depends on the person you get behind the counter i suppose.
 
Also might add that SORNs don't transfer with ownership - if you're not going to be taxing/insuring the car straight away get a new SORN put on it.
 
If you are not going to tax it then you will have to low load it to get it home.

I bought a car just after Xmas that was SORN. Not knowing the area I bought it from very well I decided to drive it the 25 miles back home to my local Post office and taxed it there. In my defence I was not suppose to pick it up till the Monday but a family crisis on the sellers side made me have to go and collect late Saturday afternoon. Their local post office was shut.

The inevitable happened and I went through a mobile ANPR. Although they were on a tea break the camera was on so I received a summons. A quick call to the DVLA explaining the situation and they could see I taxed it same day and my court appearance has been reduced to £80 fine.

Buying a car without tax is a complete pain in the butt. Sellers are not likely to part with the documents till you pay for the car. Then you have to leave the car there until you can fin a post office and tax it.
 
My car was sorn when i bought it.

Had a cheeky drive round the sellers estate to test it, bought car, insured it there and then. Me and the previous owner then nipped to the post office and taxed it.

Jobs a good n.
 
It's quite a situation they've created with these new legislations, they should have added a 30-day grace period, with a "not kept on the road" stipulation attached to it. This way, all a buyer would have to do is take out day insurance on the vehicle.
 
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