sold a motorcycle on ebay last year , customer collected and filled in sections of V5 , he was given the new supliment section,



about 8 wks later customer contacted me by email to check I had posted V5 off, I had (the day after the purchace) I suggested he get a new V5 by using his supliment,



received today out or court settlement of £35,, or £55 if not paid by 17/5/13 , dated 30/4/13 ,



am I correct in replying "FO" , letter was posted and UK law states received within 2 working days , and there is no obligation to await a conformation?



about to type a letter , but just asking for conformation this is correct

You fulfilled your legal obligation when you posted it.

thank you ,

Which law would that be then?

my apolosies , I was referring to the law concurning the police/courts , etc stating this

Interpretations Act 1978 (except that it doesn't stipulate two days but that would be reasonable assumption)


This post has been edited by Johnxxx: Sat, 4 May 2013 - 21:11

well a reply from DVLA this morning , thanking me for my letter and stating " although you have indicated that you are no longer the keeper of the vehicle , the department has not received notification of this, when the dept is advised that the keeper of the vehicle has changed we send a achnolagement letter within 4** weeks of the notification. it is a matter for you to pursue this letter. details of the process can be found on the V5C.

you now have the oppertunity to prevent court action , please pay £35 ,,, by 01/06/2013 bla bla bla or we will raise it to £55 , to be paid by 08/06/2013

weird dates?

am I correct , when I spend another 60p on a stamp (unstamped envelope) to tell them to sod off and see me in court?

** PS I thought it was 6 weeks?

That's their standard reply :

You could send back :

In order to be clear about my legal position :

1 Please state the legislation and paragraph that legally requires me to pursue my original letter as you failed to mention it on the V5C
2 Please state where in the legislation it states that it over-rules the Interpretations Act
3 Please state the legislation that you believe to give the DVLA the statutory power to impose a penalty for a failure to notify the transfer in the absence of a court judgement

This post has been edited by Gan: Sat, 18 May 2013 - 20:02

Nothing has really changed. The defence you will use is that you sent the notification. If the DVLA had a 100% solid mail system and could satisfy a court your notification did not arrive you would have a problem, but they don't and have previously admitted this at court. Therefore as has been said under the interpretations act it would be deemed to have been received 2 working days after posting. There is nothing requiring you to check because a reply had not been received.

You must be prepared to take this to court, albeit experience here suggests the DVLA would probably fold pre trial; but as has been said many times on here in respect of other offences, is it worth fighting this with all the attendant costs and stress or just paying up the £35. Only you know.

Whatever reply you do send make it polite. You don't really want to end up in court with the prosecution producing a letter from you saying FO. Won't do much to reflect well on you with the bench. A simple reply along the lines suggested albeit I would not bother with point 3 of Gan's post 8 as that is a separate issue.

Dunno if this helps http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/31...rticle/6.7/made I presume this is what the Police, scamera partnerships etc use when sending documents via post but could be wrong

Sgt Dixie has pretty much covered it.

Under s. 7 Interpretation Act 1978, a notice properly posted is deemed to have been served 2 working days after posting, unless the contrary is proven. The 2 working days comes from various procedure rules and case law including Gidden (of this parish).

If the OP can prove to the satisfaction of the court (on the balance of probabilities), that the notice was properly posted, it will be deemed to have been served unless the prosecution can prove otherwise (beyond any reasonable doubt). However, assuming that s. 7 IA does apply, if the prosecution can prove that the notice was not served (delivered), then the requirement has not been complied with.

The DVLA's own rules about the sender being responsible for chasing it up if he receives no response is at best merely good practice. It does not and cannot impose a separate obligation on the former keeper.

I had exactly the same 3-4 years ago. Sent a letter to the DVLA stating that I had fulfilled my obligation required under the "Road vehicles (registration & licensing) regulations 2002" & also included the interpretations act. I got the same rejection letter as posted above.

I then sent the same letter but with some additions I.E I am not required to chase up any acknowledgement letter, I denied any debt & stated that I would be happy to defend myself in court.

Next letter was from Inter credit demanding payment, they got the same reply as the DVLA with I wouldn't be paying, refer back to DVLA added. This went on for a few months with ICI sending ever more colourful & threatening garbage (pretty much PPC like) & each time I replied with exactly the same letter.

It's now been around 3 years since I heard anything.

I wasn't going to pay for something I didn't do &, to me, the time taken drafting a few replies & the cost of some stamps was a no brainer. No real stress involved.

Oh, yes I would have gone to court if needed

EVERY time I have to post something to the black hole of Swansea I send it FIRST CLASS from a Post Office and ask for the FREE proof of postage. Should the DVLA then misplace my mail in their chaotic internal mail 'system' and invite me to pay them a bribe for their error. I simply reply with S7. Interpretations Act 1978, then as Gan eluded to above require the DVLA to point out the statute that backs up their own claims. Finish the letter off by stating you have proof of postage and would be delighted to show it to a judge should the DVLA be so stupid as to waste the courts time.

I always send mind recorded...for my own piece of mind worth the extra pennies IMO

That's what I do now. I'd never had a problem until the one above so I only ever used normal 1st class.

As the DVLA don't sign for individual recorded mail (I believe they sign for the mailbags) I don't see the point in paying extra to have a receipt when I can get free proof of postage which does the same thing.

Someone scrawls an undecipherable signature on my "Signed For" stuff that I send to DVLA. Its HMRC that I have problems with and Royal Mail have refunded my Signed For fee when they couldn't extract a signature from HMRC.