Motoring Discussion > SORN Problem Legal Questions
Thread Author: Robin O'Reliant Replies: 7
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New Thu 1 Nov 12 20:20 
 SORN Problem - Robin O'Reliant
I Bought my bike on 7th October and it was on SORN which ran until April next year. It was in my garage for a week before a dealer came and picked it up to MoT it and do some other work to get it road ready. Anyway, because of a wait for a new headlight I did not get it back till today with a new Mot dated 29th October. I did not realise that the SORN expired with the transfer of the vehicle until I taxed it online tonight when I was informed that the DVLA enforcement office MAY be in contact because of the gap between the end of the SORN (which is apparantly backdated to the beginning of the month) and the application for a tax disc.

Am I likely to get an automatic penalty, or should they accept it as an innocent mistake baring in mind the small gap?
Last edited by: Robin Regal on Thu 1 Nov 12 at 20:21
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New Thu 1 Nov 12 20:24 
 SORN Problem - Zero
They will be after you for the missing 1 months tax at worse.
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New Thu 1 Nov 12 20:35 
 SORN Problem - Bromptonaut
You may get some more correspondence but I suspect it'll fall below the radar.
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New Thu 1 Nov 12 20:53 
 SORN Problem - teabelly
Many people fall foul of this. The person that bought a sorn'd car from me fell foul of it.

It's a dumb situation that a vehicle can need tax before you even owned it because of the stupid way the tax/sorn situation is.

It couldn't have been taxed due to no MOT. The most you could have done is to declare sorn on change of owner so you've saved DVLA some paperwork as by the time they would have processed the SORN it would have been taxed anyway so they would have imploded or promptly cancelled the valid tax in some Kafka-esque chicken-up that would have taken weeks or months to resolve.

It could only have been sorn'ed during the gap.

The logical thing to do is to not cancel sorn on change of owner. Tax disks aren't cancelled on change of owner so why is sorn cancelled?? It's a dumb system.
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New Thu 1 Nov 12 21:06 
 SORN Problem - Zero

>> The logical thing to do is to not cancel sorn on change of owner. Tax
>> disks aren't cancelled on change of owner so why is sorn cancelled?? It's a dumb
>> system.

Its a good system, that requires a slight tweak with respect to cancellation on change of ownership.
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New Fri 2 Nov 12 07:16 
 SORN Problem - Duncan
Why the scowly faces on these two posts?

The world's gone mad!
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New Fri 2 Nov 12 09:09 
 SORN Problem - Bromptonaut
SORN is a Statutory Off Road Notice; an undertaking given by the keeper. Unlike taxed status it cannot be transferred, the new owner needs to show he's given the same undertaking.

If that's not clear on the formwork then there's a bit of redesign needed.
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New Fri 2 Nov 12 09:16 
 SORN Problem - CGNorwich
"If that's not clear on the formwork then there's a bit of redesign needed."

It would be difficult to make it clearer.

It states quite clearly:

"If you buy a vehicle that already has a SORN from its previous keeper, the SORN will finish as soon as you buy the vehicle. You will need to make a new SORN" The words have a red triangle with an exclamation mark next to them."

www.gov.uk/register-sorn-statutory-off-road-notification
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