What to do / difficult time

TheDean

TheDean

TheDean

Soldato
Joined
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North East
Hi all,

Sadly my Mum passed away recently and, amongst other things, I now have to sell her car. It's an '06 VW beetle and I'm not sure how to progress really.

Questions:

1. Does Tax 'die' with the owner of the vehicle? If so, should I SORN it now?
2. Insurance has expired on the vehicle. Issues?
3. There are a couple of lights on the dash, scratches on a couple of panels and one of the rear light's casings is cracked. Essentially, not in the best of conditions. Should I take it to a VW Garage and pay for all this to be done, or just sell it as is?

I'd appreciate as much help as you can all give, as understandably not thinking straight at the moment.

Cheers,

TheDean
 
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Sorry to hear that mate. Not a nice thing to go through.

in answer to your questions

1. No tax is fine until it expires
2. If kept on driveway etc it will be fine unless someone nicks it - also test drives will be awkward etc
3. Gat a price from a non VW garage and decide from there if its worth it or not
 
vanandjuanunited said:
Sorry to hear that mate. Not a nice thing to go through.

in answer to your questions

1. No tax is fine until it expires
2. If kept on driveway etc it will be fine unless someone nicks it - also test drives will be awkward etc
3. Gat a price from a non VW garage and decide from there if its worth it or not
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Thanks buddy.

1. No Tax is fine?! Really?
2. It's on my drive, so off the road. Test drives would be awkward, that's why I'm thinking of selling through http://www.sure-sell.info/ or webuyanycar - Are they any good?
 
TheDean said:
Thanks buddy.

1. No Tax is fine?! Really?
2. It's on my drive, so off the road. Test drives would be awkward, that's why I'm thinking of selling through http://www.sure-sell.info/ or webuyanycar - Are they any good?
Click to expand...

He didn't mean "no tax is fine", he meant "no, the tax is fine" as in, tax does not die with the owner. Someone has paid for the car to be taxed for a year so the car is taxed for a year.

Do not sell it to webuyanycar or companies like that, you will get a lot more selling it privately or phoning a VW garage and explaining the circumstances.
 
Peerzy said:
He didn't mean "no tax is fine", he meant "no, the tax is fine" as in, tax does not die with the owner. Someone has paid for the car to be taxed for a year so the car is taxed for a year.

Do not sell it to webuyanycar or companies like that, you will get a lot more selling it privately or phoning a VW garage and explaining the circumstances.
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I think though that it was some kind of special tax...i.e. there was a concession because she was registered disabled. Somone mentioned that I may have to take this disc to swap it for a 'normal' tax disc and/or buy a normal one. So complicated...
 
TheDean said:
I think though that it was some kind of special tax...i.e. there was a concession because she was registered disabled. Somone mentioned that I may have to take this disc to swap it for a 'normal' tax disc and/or buy a normal one. So complicated...
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If that is the case you will need to insure then re-tax it im afraid.
 
If it was taxed on disability then yes, it will need re-taxing. I went through this with my Father's car and it was a bit of a PITA if I'm honest. You need the V5 to be in your name, and also insurance on the vehicle. Now, we had re-insured it for my brother, but given the timeframe only had the original V5 in my fathers name. After a near two-hour argument at the DVLA office in Manchester, they finally caved and let me tax it there and then, but my god it was a ballache.

You'd think they would have special circumstances in the event of death, but no, they are just as retarded and slow as ever.
 
paradigm said:
If it was taxed on disability then yes, it will need re-taxing. I went through this with my Father's car and it was a bit of a PITA if I'm honest. You need the V5 to be in your name, and also insurance on the vehicle. Now, we had re-insured it for my brother, but given the timeframe only had the original V5 in my fathers name. After a near two-hour argument at the DVLA office in Manchester, they finally caved and let me tax it there and then, but my god it was a ballache.

You'd think they would have special circumstances in the event of death, but no, they are just as retarded and slow as ever.
Click to expand...


Yea you will get more sympathy and help from a brick than DVLA employees.
 
vanandjuanunited said:
also test drives will be awkward etc
Click to expand...

On this point, how would test drives work? I mean, if the car was in my name, and I was fully comp on it, presumably others would just be 3rd party?! What if they crashed it?

paradigm said:
If it was taxed on disability then yes, it will need re-taxing. I went through this with my Father's car and it was a bit of a PITA if I'm honest. You need the V5 to be in your name, and also insurance on the vehicle. Now, we had re-insured it for my brother, but given the timeframe only had the original V5 in my fathers name. After a near two-hour argument at the DVLA office in Manchester, they finally caved and let me tax it there and then, but my god it was a ballache.

You'd think they would have special circumstances in the event of death, but no, they are just as retarded and slow as ever.
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That sounds like a huge hassle.....not ideal. I'll give them a ring tomorrow and see what they say.
 
This is one of those situations where a quick sale to a trader might be worth the lower selling price.

No taxing, no insuring, just see it off.
 
DiamondMark said:
This is one of those situations where a quick sale to a trader might be worth the lower selling price.

No taxing, no insuring, just see it off.
Click to expand...

We did similar, we offloaded an '03 Fiesta to a trader and kept the better '55 MINI Cooper S (my Father's car) for my Brother.

We were happier to lose the value of the relatively dirt cheap Fiesta than lose a higher % of value of the Cooper S.
 
TheDean said:
On this point, how would test drives work? I mean, if the car was in my name, and I was fully comp on it, presumably others would just be 3rd party?! What if they crashed it?



That sounds like a huge hassle.....not ideal. I'll give them a ring tomorrow and see what they say.
Click to expand...

They will need their own insurance on the car if they want to test drive it. You insurance will only cover yourself.
 
DiamondMark said:
This is one of those situations where a quick sale to a trader might be worth the lower selling price.

No taxing, no insuring, just see it off.
Click to expand...

Going to ring some VW garages tomorrow to see if they want to take if off my hands. Will post prices when I get them. Thanks guys for your help
 
Spoke to DVLA today...bloke basically said I don't need to transfer the car into my name, and if I sell it privately, I can just fill out the sellers slip thing and enclose a covering letter explaining I am an executor of the estate. That sound Ok?!

May just take it into the local garage for a full look in. There's also a light coming on in the dash which is worrying. After having a look, Google says it's an ASR/ESP Control Lamp K155. Is that bad?!

EDIT: Spoke to a Garage. Bloke was a complete arse, so made my mind up I'm selling it privately, and no major rush for cash.
 
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If you're in no rush, take the time to give it a good thorough clean / valet inside and out, polish it up, replace the cracked light casing. (2nd hand perhaps?)

Ring round some local independent garages, see if you can find someone with more than 3 braincells (tough call i know) who can explain the light errors and give you a rough idea of what it would cost to fix them.

Then its up to you whether to fix stuff before sale, or advise prospective buyers of the issues.
 
 
Sorry for your loss mate,

If I remember reading somewhere, on VW cars the dash & error codes do not disappear by themselves say when a problem is fixed and need to be cleared by VW or using a VAGCOM if I'm right? I had a simular issue when trying to clear the engine management light on a mate's VW Beetle.

Liam
 
Fellas - You are all stars, thank you for all your help so far. I will make sure the garage has a vagcom...I would hope it does, but it's only a small indy, so not sure.

Wicksta - Thank you for the links to the lights! I'll defo get one of those and let the garage fit it, unless it's an easy job?
 
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