denviks Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 the reason i am posting this guys n girls is because i want to warn all that it could happen to any motorist well i now have lost faith in this countries ability to get anything right... the reason i say this? i got a letter through the post 4 weeks ago saying i owed the courts £145 for a fine. no other info. i had no idea what it was about so contacted the fines department. i was told after they did some digging it was for a bike that i had sold over 3 years ago. the dvla say that i didnt notify them by sending in the log book that i had sold it. the woman at the fines department was very helpful to be honest. she did some more digging for me and found out that i had already had a court date etc but not turned up. ( no s@it ) i explained that i knew nothing about any of this at all. so after more digging she found out that for 3 years they were sending court letters to the wrong address... so i had to write to the correct department to get explain what had happened and get it all sorted..... i honestly thought when i wrote in that they would see scence and dump this stupid case... well no. it seems they are going the whole way. i now have a letter saying i need to go to court on the 16th june to get the case opened again. once its opened i need to go to court again on the 18th sept to plead my case.as this was over 3 years ago i cannot find the letter the dvla sent to say they had recieved the log book.....who keeps them for more than 3 years?? i am completly gutted as this is all going to happen when i am getting married. i will be awy on my honeymoon until 3 days before the new court date.... i cant be dealing with this while im supposed to be away on the best holiday of my life so it looks like im going to have to pay up. i am so annoyed with the courts and the systems in place.... rule britania ( land of money making ) __________________ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbarton Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Get in touch with the BBC "Watchdog" programme, they've been running an item on the DVLA's incompetence for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denviks Posted May 30, 2009 Author Share Posted May 30, 2009 will do that now mate ... thanks.... didnt know they were doing it. its unbelievable. this could happen to any of us Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbarton Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Look here Here and here here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denviks Posted May 30, 2009 Author Share Posted May 30, 2009 some good reading there mate.thanks.... it seems its happening all over the place then... i have no emailed watchdog aswell. i still think i will end up paying the fine as i cant have this hanging over me when the biggest day of my life is looming large Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Train Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 I had that happen to me and my Dad too. I got a summons for unpaid fines and no road tax for a car I had p/x to a dealer quite a few years before. With a lot of digging I found that the DVLA were unable to trace the current owner and so decided to pursue the known previous owner (me) instead as that was the last factual address they had. With a lot of arguing back and forth I managed to find the sales receipt for my then current car with the details of the dealer p/x details and told then to pursue the dealer as they were the last known keepers of the car. Didn't hear from them again. When I was a kid my dad was arrested by the Police for armed robbery. He was innocent but he was the last known, honest, owner of the getaway van. He had also sold the van a few years previously but DVLA and the Police seemed to think that it was still his. Fortunately Dad had also sold to a dealer and was able to pass the buck and prove his innocence with copies of receipts of the sale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
will_warne Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 As night train said, try and find some proof you sold the bike - was it by cash, banker's draft or direct transfer? The last 2 are easy to proove but the first is harder. You'd have to use the sale advert to show the price and approx date and a bank statement showing you deposited a similar (and large) sum of money into your account. Also, is there any other proof you got rid of the bike (like buying another one, adverts for the bike, switching/canceling insurance)? As this is a criminal matter the prosecution have to show beyond reasonable doubt that this was your bike and that you committed the crime. If you have enough evidence to cast some doubt that you did commit the crime then you won't be prosecuted. Try not to worry about this - just get as much evidence as possible together and the magistrate should hopefully realise this was a clerical error on behalf of the DVLA. Whatever you do don't let it ruin your wedding and honeymoon! HTHs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suggs Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 what is the fine for Den, failing to send of the doc's or for road tax evasion etc, if its for tax then surly they have to prove you do still own the car rather than you having to prove you dont. as others are saying if you can show you have another car now and when you bought it, then i think you will have a chance of winning in court. surly they must have a record of that letter they sent you when you sold the car.. even getting people down your road to right letters saying when they stopped seeing the old car and the new one arrived etc would help.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denviks Posted June 16, 2009 Author Share Posted June 16, 2009 guys massive thanks for your replies on this topic. you stopped me worrying about it.i did sit and think long and hard about just paying the £145 and being done with it. but something inside me told me to fight it all the way... which is what i did. i wrote a letter to the courts telling them that i knew nothing about this issue until a fine landed on my door step on the may 2009. the court case was on 2006 that i was found guilty and fined....so asked to have the case re opened,. this morning i went into court to defend myself. after 20 mins i walked free from court after explaining what happened and how i knew nothing about it. the fact that almost 4 years have now past since the original issue so was unreasnable to persue. the dvla solicitor agreed and wanted to drop the case. .. the court agreed and i walked free. it was a nerve rackng experiance i can tell you now i can look forward to getting married in aug and not think anymore about this,.... thanks to all for your advice..... B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoggyN Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Congratulations If more people stood up to them maybe they would sort themselves out. I've had several wrangles with them over SORN declarations and incorrect dates on V5s. The SORN cock-ups they did admit but the incorrect dates remain unchanged. My wife just sent off two V5s with her new married name on them and one came back correctly showing just the change in name but no increase in the number of keepers, the other showed a change of keeper. She's a a bit miffed as the car is not now officially a 'one careful lady owner' car (ha, ha). If she was hoping to take advantage of the new (stupid) scrappage scheme, she would have problems because, according to the V5, she's only owned the car two weeks. Bunch of incompetent idiots! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrnick Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 As i said to you Den this is great news with all you've been through (and going to go through ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jameslwt Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 And to make it worse it takes a court case to get them to see sense!? Another waste of taxpayers money! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
92.9 Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 I'm glad it worked out well for you in the end. Glad to hear that you didn't pay the fine too, as that would have been wrong. Something similar happened to a friend's brother, who sold an old van that years later started clocking up lots of parking tickets and various other offences in London. The authorities were pursuing my friend's brother relentlessly and wouldn't take his word that he no longer owned it and had sent in the V5 when it was sold. Purely by chance he saw a picture of his old van posted by the owner in a discussion on a car forum, so he contacted the authorities and sent them a link to the forum thread. They must have pursued that because he heard nothing more from them. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
92.9 Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Congratulations If more people stood up to them maybe they would sort themselves out. I've had several wrangles with them over SORN declarations and incorrect dates on V5s. The SORN cock-ups they did admit but the incorrect dates remain unchanged. My wife just sent off two V5s with her new married name on them and one came back correctly showing just the change in name but no increase in the number of keepers, the other showed a change of keeper. She's a a bit miffed as the car is not now officially a 'one careful lady owner' car (ha, ha). If she was hoping to take advantage of the new (stupid) scrappage scheme, she would have problems because, according to the V5, she's only owned the car two weeks. Bunch of incompetent idiots! One of my friends who has a large collection of cars had to send all his V5s in for a change in details and when they came back about 40% of them had mistakes in the new details. Some of the mistakes weren't something you could attribute to a simple error as a few details that were changed had nothing to do with the requested changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRecklessEngineer Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 I'm still battling the DVLA over a vehicle I scrapped last year. Apparently road tax is due on it. Yes, they lost the V5. After many letters back and forth I've told them they will have to sue me for the fine and politely reminded them that there it is a serious civil and criminal offence to instruct a debt collection agency to collect a debt that is not due. I've heard nothing for about 2 months now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbarton Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Den - did you put in a claim for costs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denviks Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 i didnt mate to be honest. i thought it had cost everyone envolved enough already .... i could of cliamed my diesel up to the court and back i suppose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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