tripple whammy with new tax/insurance rules.

[sendmyusername]

Afternoon all.
Recently my car insurances were up for renewal, and due to leaving it all to the last minute, i hadn't got around to getting a competitive quote for the elise. Due to it having a couple of sensible mods on it, i couldn't get a quote online as it was all 'call for a quote' nonsense.
So i went ahead with insuring the sensible cars, but left the elise uninsured.
This was just a short- term thing as i was working next two days.
This is where it gets interesting. (honestly)
The new rules with insurance are the same as road tax - if you don't have insurance, you have to declare it sorn.
This wasn't a problem, as i obviously wasn't going to drive it without insurance.
However, declaring it sorn cancells your road tax.
It was on the 4th of the month, and i didn't want my road tax back (i was going to be insuring it and using it again a couple of days later)
Even with monthly road tax that they have introduced, you don't get a refund of the current month. So if i had sorned my car - as now required - i would have had to pay for my own road tax twice in the same month !
As i also have motorbikes etc, this more than a pain in the arse.
I realise most people are more organised and wouldn't be without insurance for a couple of days, just thought i'd point it out.
Just for clarity - i was in no way considering using the car without insurance, i was just trying to follow the rules regards the sorn -

[pete]

That's rubbish (that is to say the new rules are rubbish - you've every right to feel aggrieved)

I SORN'd the Elise, un-SORN'D it to realise, even though it was part way through the month I had to pay for the unused days. Just nonsense.

[tut]

You never did get the tax back from the present month if you ran into it before you cancel/sorn, only from the next month to the expiry.

tut

[sendmyusername]

Nah, tut, you are missing my point -
I was going to be without insurance for two days 5th 6th of october.
This in itself was not a problem for me, however new rules demand that you declare the car as sorn if you have no insurance. When you declare it sorn, it cancels your road tax whether you want to or not. I was going to lose my paid for road tax by following the rules. (also i had another six months left, which i wouldn't have got a proper refund back)

[pete]

And I know in my case it's just the old rules but under the old rules there was a conceit that the reason you had to buy whole months was for the discs. There is no good reason now! (Well Ok there is, I would just tax the Elise by the day!)

[tut]

Realise now, it changed when they bought in the Insurance clause which is the killer.

tut

[robin]

Are you 100% sure you must declare sorn for an uninsured car if it is off the public road?

[tut]

Yep, it can be in your garage, but it has to be either insured or SORNED regardless. Came in a couple of years ago.

tut

[David]

Is there not now a period of grace for this very reason - 10 or 15 days ?? No action is taken provided it all comes good after that. For example if your car fails the MOT and can't be taxed, then the SORN can be held off after the tax expires for 15 days. Same applies to insurance does it not? It doesn't mean it can be used on public roads though.

[j2 lot]

I would be surprised if they were efficient enough to spot a 2 day lapse of insurance unless the car was 'caught' on the road while it was uninsured.*
Although it is now a legal requirement to SORN an uninsured car and I can see no get out clauses or grace periods mentioned.

* I take no responsibility for any ensuing fine, imprisonment or penalty imposed if DVLA prove to be more efficient or vindictive than expected in this matter

[tut]

There used to be a twelve day grace for tax, but they stopped that when they realised they were losing revenue by not handing out tickets.

tut

[Corranga]

Tut is right, this particular change was introduced a few years back, end of June 11 it seems:
http://www.directscot.org/article/stay- ... -insurance

If anything, the new system probably makes it easier for you as I think it's easier to cancel / get a refund than it ever has been, plus you've always only been able to get the refund for whole months anyway.

Personally, I'd have either called the DVLA and asked if there was a period of grace, or just assumed there was, or I guess not left it until the last minute - hindsight and all... I actually had a similar situation with my Lotus a couple of years back when CCI (my then insurer) didn't bother to sent a renewal letter.

As for the no insurance = SORN or fine law, I think it's a good idea personally. The number of uninsured drivers on the road was increasing, and whilst I don't know if this has helped, at least the DVLA have been thinking about it, though I appreciate it makes a car a PITA to sell if you've already bought a replacement..

[tut]

When we still had paper documents you were safe if you had them all in the car and said that you were on the way to the PO to tax it.

If you were stopped, the bobby would be happy enough to tip his helmet to you, wish you a good day, and peddle off on his bike.

tut

[sendmyusername]

Re: just paying daily - you have to pay for a full month, so you would be losing a full month if you cancelled it, although you can now pay monthly and stop at anytime.(handy if you only use your vehicle for eight months of the year)
Re: how quickly they are to spot it - all done by computers, as soon as you lapse a letter/fine can be automatically churned out. Whether there is a grace period or not is at their discretion.
Re: Stopping uninsured drivers or untaxed ones ?
If some one is of the ilk to drive without insurance, do you really think they would care one jot about signing a piece of paper to say they weren't using their car, whilst still using it ?
Tax will be even worse now the tax disc isn't displayed, RAC reckons it will save dvla £10M but cost them more than £120M in revenue alone ,as plate recognition only works if they are driven past, or if someone hasn't taken the plates off another car. (the tax discs were harder to copy)
Again, i'm not in the habit of having any of my vehicles uninsured, whether i'm using them or not, as bikes especially are easy to load into a van, but being a bit behind in sorting out insurance, (whilst not using the vehicle) should not double penalise me when it comes following the rules.

Basically - if you declare your vehicle SORN you should have the option of keeping it taxed.

[sendmyusername]

The entire point of this post is - i didn't want to cash in my road tax, i wanted to declare that i wasn't using it while it was uninsured (as per the rules).
Cashing in the road tax was finacially penalising for myself.
It doesn't give you the option of declaring sorn and keeping it taxed.