Returning number plates to DVLA

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nicholsong

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When one registers a UK vehicle in another country is there an obligation to return the plates to DVLA? If so I do not have to surrender them in the foreign country.

If so a reference please.

Geoff
 
It does say you need to return the plates

www.gov.uk

Taking a vehicle out of the UK

Taking your car out of the UK - when VAT is not payable on a car you're exporting, procedures, registration and vehicle tax.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
 
matamoros said:
I can't see anything in that link about returning plates and I cant see any reason to.
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I agree. If for some obscure reason you wanted to keep the old plates any motor factors would make a pair for sending back. In your case you'd probably need to get them made in U.K. to the U.K. design. In theory you're supposed to produce the V5 to prove it's your vehicle. My local Halfords sticks to those rules but my other two local factors have never asked.
 
After exporting hundreds of cars to the Far East we always removed the plates and destroyed them. Never returned them.
 
In some countries who do not have real grasp of our vehicle licencing system they may require that you give them the UK plates when you register for their plates (happened to me in Australia . )
 
I did not not as I intend to use them again when i return to blighty
 
nicholsong said:
When one registers a UK vehicle in another country is there an obligation to return the plates to DVLA? If so I do not have to surrender them in the foreign country.

If so a reference please.

Geoff
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No.

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Thanks all.

The authorities here want me to surrender the plates to them, unless I write a statement that there is an obligation on me to return them to UK.

No skin off my nose either way.

Geoff
 
nicholsong said:
When one registers a UK vehicle in another country is there an obligation to return the plates to DVLA? If so I do not have to surrender them in the foreign country.

If so a reference please.

Geoff
Click to expand...
You can't "return" the plates to DVLA 'cos they didn't come from them in the first place.
 
the same as scrapping a vehicle, you fill in and return the log book as permanently exported. The vehicle is then no longer uk registered. No longer exists etc
 
Phew I have a garage full of plates maybe I should put them in a shredder !
 
I think if you posted some plates to the DVLA they'll be laughing at it down the pub for weeks. Except they won't as they'll be in Swansea and can't go...

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:unsure:
ISTR that when I lived in France (or was it Germany?) my car reg'n number related to me rather than (as well as?) my car and I transferred the number from one car to the next. Certainly the French ones carried the département number appropriate to where I was living.
 
MikeD said:
It does say you need to return the plates

www.gov.uk

Taking a vehicle out of the UK

Taking your car out of the UK - when VAT is not payable on a car you're exporting, procedures, registration and vehicle tax.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
Click to expand...
No it doesn't.
Checked twice and it only says to send the 'permenant export' section of the V5c
The physical plates are the owners private property.
The number on the plates is DVLAs intellectual property.
 
pappajohn said:
No it doesn't.
Checked twice and it only says to send the 'permenant export' section of the V5c
The physical plates are the owners private property.
The number on the plates is DVLAs intellectual property.
Click to expand...


Please see post 7

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DVLA are only interested in paperwork to update the computers. Plates go on ones shed ceiling.
 
No requirement to return number plates. Since DVLA didn't supply the plates in the first place (only assign the mark that appears on them) how can you "return" them. You have to notify the vehicle as permanently exported however.

The requirement to surrender plates in some foreign countries relates to the fact that they are often the property of the registration authority, and much more tightly controlled than in the UK, where any Tom, Dick or Harry can produce them in a back street hovel (despite legislation to the contrary).
 
cmcardle75 said:
I think if you posted some plates to the DVLA they'll be laughing at it down the pub for weeks. Except they won't as they'll be in Swansea and can't go...
Click to expand...


Ah, but you do not know the other side of the Polish authorities' blurb which is that one must surrender the plates to them, so that they can return them to your original registered country.

But they do not say to whom.

I know that it is all bulshit, so I may write that I am under an obligation to return them and see if they know better. They are pissing me off in so many other ways, because they do not know the EU Regulation which came into force on 1st Sept 2020 and takes precedent over their own previous law written under a EU Directive, which is lower in the hierarchy of law.

Geoff
 
nicholsong said:
Ah, but you do not know the other side of the Polish authorities' blurb which is that one must surrender the plates to them, so that they can return them to your original registered country.

But they do not say to whom.

I know that it is all bulshit, so I may write that I am under an obligation to return them and see if they know better. They are pissing me off in so many other ways, because they do not know the EU Regulation which came into force on 1st Sept 2020 and takes precedent over their own previous law written under a EU Directive, which is lower in the hierarchy of law.

Geoff
Click to expand...

I would advise against intentionally pissing off bureaucracy, especially if you need the thing registered. Just send them the plates!

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I had to deal with plenty of Poles over here who had bought and exported UK cars to Poland to re-register them without informing DVLA either that they were the new keeper or that they were permanently exporting them. When they found that they couldn't register them in Poland without producing the UK V5 in their name, they made subsequent block applications to DVLA for new V5s, which were referred to us for vehicle inspections.

I had to tell them that they couldn't get a V5 for vehicles that had already left the country.
 
As others have said, the plates belong to YOU, not the DVLA
You should just send the export part of the V5 to DVLA
 

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