Temporary tax and insurance when buying from a private seller

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

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Joined
26 Nov 2010
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Location
Thorne Yorkshire
Hi,
I'm looking for a bit of advice here.
My neighbour is selling his old ford fiesta to me.
At the moment it is sat on our shared drive.
The O2 light comes on. We both knew this when we agreed the sale. That's not my question here.

I want to take it to a local garage to have it diagnosed and repaired.
My question is: Do I need to get it taxed and insured to take it the short 1 mile trip to the garage? I'm guessing that's a yes. I've seen websites that will do short term, temporary insurance. But how do I go about obtaining this temporary tax?

Many thanks.
 
You would have to tax it for the full month, please be careful when buying temporary insurance as some companies are more designed for insuring a mates car and may require comprehensive insurance anyway.
 
Baldbloke said:
Hi,
I'm looking for a bit of advice here.
My neighbour is selling his old ford fiesta to me.
At the moment it is sat on our shared drive.
The O2 light comes on. We both knew this when we agreed the sale. That's not my question here.

I want to take it to a local garage to have it diagnosed and repaired.
My question is: Do I need to get it taxed and insured to take it the short 1 mile trip to the garage? I'm guessing that's a yes. I've seen websites that will do short term, temporary insurance. But how do I go about obtaining this temporary tax?

Many thanks.
Click to expand...

Insurance is a must-have. Plenty of options for short-term cover. Tax on the other hand...if the car is SORN'd, and you're taking it to a pre-booked (this bit is important) appointment to get it looked at/fixed up to make road legal then you don't need to take it off SORN. It just has to be insured.

Does it have a current MOT? Driving to a pre-booked MOT test is also a scenario where you don't need to be taxed.
 
JRS said:
Insurance is a must-have. Plenty of options for short-term cover. Tax on the other hand...if the car is SORN'd, and you're taking it to a pre-booked (this bit is important) appointment to get it looked at/fixed up to make road legal then you don't need to take it off SORN. It just has to be insured.

Does it have a current MOT? Driving to a pre-booked MOT test is also a scenario where you don't need to be taxed.
Click to expand...
That's a good point regarding the SORN - Didn't think about the pre-booked testing appointment
 
JRS said:
Insurance is a must-have. Plenty of options for short-term cover. Tax on the other hand...if the car is SORN'd, and you're taking it to a pre-booked (this bit is important) appointment to get it looked at/fixed up to make road legal then you don't need to take it off SORN. It just has to be insured.

Does it have a current MOT? Driving to a pre-booked MOT test is also a scenario where you don't need to be taxed.
Click to expand...

Thank you.
It is MOT'd.
I believe my neighbour mentioned something about SORN. I'll check with him. (I hadn't come across this term before today. That's a term I'll have to google)
Pre-book. Didn't know about that either. I will do so.
I'll have a look for temporary insurance for a few days.
Will phone garages on Saturday or Monday to start making arrangements.
Many, many thanks.
 
Quartz said:
Can you put it on a trailer?
Click to expand...

That'd be a good idea. Unfortunateley, no. I don't have immediate access to a trailer.

My lass suggested perhaps the garage could maybe collect it using trade plates. It is perfectly fine other than the o2 light. My neighbours missus has been using it right up until yesterday when she took delivery of a newer, fancier car.

Hyburnate said:
You would have to tax it for the full month, please be careful when buying temporary insurance as some companies are more designed for insuring a mates car and may require comprehensive insurance anyway.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'll do a bit of research over the weekend to find a good deal. I think I'd be happy with fully comp anyway.
 
If you already have a car that's insured, try contacting your current insurer about temporary cover. Quite a lot of insurance companies will offer fully comp insurance for another car on a short-term basis so it might be worth giving them a call if that applies. My wife did it when she'd got a new car and we hadn't arranged getting rid of the old one yet, I think to have both the new car and the old car insured for a whole month it was only £30 or so. I've had to do it on one of my old cars for a couple of days too and I can't remember how much it cost but it wasn't much at all.
 
Lopéz said:
A mile? I would have already driven it there by now.
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:) Yeah, I know. I'm a wimp. :). Very tempting but No. That's just begging for sods law to intervene. For the sake of a few quid plus a little bit of admin taxing and insuring is just not worth the risk.
 
Phemo said:
If you already have a car that's insured, try contacting your current insurer about temporary cover. Quite a lot of insurance companies will offer fully comp insurance for another car on a short-term basis so it might be worth giving them a call if that applies. My wife did it when she'd got a new car and we hadn't arranged getting rid of the old one yet, I think to have both the new car and the old car insured for a whole month it was only £30 or so. I've had to do it on one of my old cars for a couple of days too and I can't remember how much it cost but it wasn't much at all.
Click to expand...
Very good point. I bought it for my lass. She hasn't sold her existing car yet. Looks like same situation. I'll get her to give her insurers a call.
All good info folks. Thank you.
 
Baldbloke said:
:) Yeah, I know. I'm a wimp. :). Very tempting but No. That's just begging for sods law to intervene. For the sake of a few quid plus a little bit of admin taxing and insuring is just not worth the risk.
Click to expand...
Not a wimp, just more risk averse than I am I suppose.
 
Not strictly above board, but depending on when it was sold and whether the insurance has been cancelled, it's possible it's still showing as taxed or insured - might be worth checking via the gov Vehicle Enquiry site and askmid.
 
Armageus said:
Not strictly above board, but depending on when it was sold and whether the insurance has been cancelled, it's possible it's still showing as taxed or insured - might be worth checking via the gov Vehicle Enquiry site and askmid.
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Yes. It shows as taxed online. But the previous owner SORN'd it just a day or so before I bought it. It appears we have to wait 5 working days to re-tax it online. Alternative is to go to post office in person. Bank holiday means post offices are shut.
 
Armageus said:
Not strictly above board, but depending on when it was sold and whether the insurance has been cancelled, it's possible it's still showing as taxed or insured - might be worth checking via the gov Vehicle Enquiry site and askmid.
Click to expand...

This can go badly wrong - there are a couple of car YouTubers being prosecuted currently for driving without insurance in variations of this when in the process of buying cars. Though in one case they simply took the owner's word for it without checking when the owner had actually cancelled.
 
Rroff said:
This can go badly wrong - there are a couple of car YouTubers being prosecuted currently for driving without insurance in variations of this when in the process of buying cars. Though in one case they simply took the owner's word for it without checking when the owner had actually cancelled.
Click to expand...
Not condoning it in the slightest, but to drive a mile it may give some reassurance if not planning on actually insuring the car yet.
 
I've needed temp cover on other vehicles a few times now.

pretty much always found it cheaper to be added as a named driver on other persons policy as long as they're happy to do so.

best one was me mams insurance wanted 45 quid to add me for a month... of free for the remainder of policy which was about 8 month, just an amin fee of 20, which they then waived haha.

these temp insurance jobbies seem vastly more expensive than they should be
 
RobTi said:
maybe the previous owner has yet to cancel the insurance and you could just use that
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It has been SORN'd. He sorn'd it just hours before we had a chat about me buying it. So no valid tax or insurance on it. Because it is such recent sorn application I have to wait 5 working days for it to be processed by DVLA before I can tax online and insure it . No matter, I can pop in to the post office and get it all done on Monday. Then can happily tootle along to the garage to have the O2 light diagnosed and repaired.
Many thanks to the advice people have given in this thread. I hadn't a clue how to proceed previously. Now, thanks to folks here, I do.
 
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