I forgot to declare vehicle as SORN for 15+ years, will DVLA ask for the road tax to be back paid before I can sell?
Hello. I live in Spain and own a 1997 Harley Davidson, which I brought to Spain when I moved here in 2006/7. I fully intended to import the vehicle and legalise it, but due to many health & property complications, I just simply never got around to it.
The vehicle has never been used on the Spanish roads and has always been stored in a very dry garage and covered up to prevent storage damage.
- Can I 'sell & transfer' the bike to a very long standing (Younger) UK friend who resides in the UK and would like to buy the bike, as I have also discovered that I should have made regular SORN declarations, something I haven't since 2007 when I made the original SORN statement which I thought was all that was required ?
- Can the DVLA refuse to register the change of ownership to my friend or any other UK resident ? I don't want to create any problems for him.
I ask as the import agency in Spain seems to shakily suggest that the DVLA will more than probably seek to demand that I pay 20+ years of back vehicle road tax plus a possible hefty fine before they are willing to perform any change of ownership, which seems to be a somewhat crazy notion to me. Although, the DVLA being non-cooperative, somewhat less crazy.
1 Reply
So you made a SORN declaration and then moved to Spain?
This is what the DVLA website states:
Your SORN is automatically cancelled when you tax your vehicle again or if you sell, permanently export or scrap your vehicle.
So there's no need to renew a SORN. There are many people who actually forgot to declare the Statutory Off Road Notification in the first place and when they did a couple of years later, they've only had to pay an £80 penalty fine.
However in your case, you should have filled in the ‘permanent export’ section of your vehicle log book (V5C), sent it to DVLA and registered the vehicle in Spain. I'm not sure whether you've done that part but you can always call DVLA and ask for their advice, pretending to be the friend who's buying the bike (thus not having to give them the licence number) and explain the situation to them.
If you haven't completed the permanent export bit, then I'm inclined to think it's still marked as SORN in their systems which means you should be fine to sell it, but a quick ring to DVLA should clarify things for you as they would know better where you stand.
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