The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

On 2007-06-08 13:27:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

I recieve a notice to relicense my car.

Its off road and has been for two years. So its a zero cost SORN..

I try the website:-

"Sorry, we don't have a record of that reference number"

I phone up
"Sorry, that reference number is not recognised"

And..as an afterthought they helpfully add.."V11 references are only
valid from the 15th day of the month preceding the expiry of the
current tax disc"

So, they send out a reminder at the beginning of the month, but
disallow its use for a fortnight?

I assume its just another job creation scheme, to ensure that they
need extra staff to process it around the month end.

Fer *** sake, if I can't use the thing, why send it in the first place?


Yes, I had the same nonsense with my wife's car.

In order to apply for a tax disc you need to have MOT certificate and
proof of insurance, but as you say, there is a 15 day window at the
end of the month.

Because of when the car was purchased, all three were due at the same
time.

I hate spending any time at all on cars - they are means of getting me
plus items that I want comfortably between A and B quickly and
efficiently and that's it. I have zero interest in them
otherwise. To that end, I have the garage come and collect the
things, service them and return them and apart from the odd thing
where there is a substantial difference on price such as tyres and
exhausts and MOT which I can get done conveniently at the end of the
road, that's it.

I also hate post offices with a vengeance and especially titting
around at them renewing tax discs (mainly because only certain ones
can do it).

It was pleasing, therefore to see that with the renewal before last
that it was possible to do the whole thing on line. The trouble is
that with the 15 day window and with co-expiring insurance and MOT it
doesn't work. The MOT reference does seem to go through quickly
enough, but the insurance information goes via some intermediate
organisation and database and the time for that to be loaded up
depends on the insurance company. At any rate, it can take 2 weeks
plus.

After further titting around, I eventually bought a 6 month tax disc
to make the insurance and tax asynchronous. This has resolved the
problem.

The whole setup is onanism par excellence.

The obvious thing to do would be to outsource tax disk issuance to the
motor insurers and give them access to the database of MOT records.
That would take two organisations out of the equation and have the
added benefit that one is the post office, thus hastening the demise
of that entire setup.



The answer is simple.

Get it MOT' ed a month earlier. Its possible to get up to a 13month MOT,
or just MOT it again anytime.

And change your insurance company a couple of months shy of the end of
the year. or ask them to change the renewal date.

Mid you my father in law got caught out that way..ws in an accident
before he remembered he hadn't MOT'ed the car 6 months earlier.. ;-)

I did that with the 'tother' car. I was driving it around for 6 months
without an MOT :-(

Dave