Number Plates News – Page 2 – Simply Registrations

How to assign a private number plate online

Assigning or transferring a private number plate to a car got a whole lot easier recently. You can now apply online to put a private number plate on a vehicle. It doesn’t matter whether the plate is currently registered to a vehicle, or held on a V750 Certificate of Entitlement/V778 Retention Document – the entire transfer could be completed in less than five minutes.

Apply online to put a private number plate on a vehicle

If you have a V750 Certificate of Entitlement (pink) or a V778 Retention Document (green) you can apply to assign your cherished number plate online using the link above.

(If your private plate is currently attached to a vehicle and you want to transfer it to another vehicle, skip to the relevant paragraph near the end of this article.)

The V5C Registration Certificate (for the vehicle receiving your private plate) must show the correct registered keeper details (name and address). If you recently bought the vehicle and are not yet the registered keeper, wait until you have the complete V5C (log book).

Follow the instructions provided on the GOV.UK website. You don’t have to pay a fee to DVLA when you put a number plate on a vehicle providing the registration is held on a valid V778 document or V750 certificate that has not expired.

If your application is successful you should fit new number plates as soon as possible.

You will receive a confirmation email with a number plate authorisation certificate (eV948) attached. This can be used to purchase new number plates without waiting for the replacement V5C (log book) to arrive by post.

Remember to notify your motor insurer/tracker provider/recovery agent of your new registration. Some motor insurers charge an administration fee to update your policy.

Unable to complete your application online?

Unfortunately not all applications to put a personalised number plate on a vehicle can be processed online. In some cases you may need to submit your paperwork to DVLA by post. If you get a message saying ‘this registration number cannot be assigned’, contact DVLA using the telephone number on-screen. If the message states ‘we need to look into your application further due to the vehicle’s licensing history‘ you will have to submit your application by post. Follow the instructions in section 1 of the certificate of entitlement or retention document. Postal applications should be sent to:

DVLA Personalised Registrations, Swansea, SA99 1DS

My private plate is held on a vehicle and I want to swap it over to a different vehicle
If the private plate is held on a vehicle, the transfer has to be processed in two stages. First you remove the plate (place it on retention). This is done by inputting the document reference number from the V5C Registration Document (log book). The fee of £80 can be paid by debit or credit card. (The second stage is assigning to a vehicle following the instructions from the beginning of this article.)

Apply to take a number plate off a vehicle and place it on retention

It is not necessary to retain your vehicle’s existing (standard-issue) registration when assigning a private number plate. Should you retain your private plate in the future it is highly likely your car will be reunited with the original registration. More information about replacement registrations.

For more information please visit the number plates & vehicle registration section at GOV.UK or contact DVLA.

Is Buying a Personalised Number Plate Complicated?

This is a popular question when someone is considering buying a personalised number plate. So, is buying a personalised number plate complicated?

The simple answer is no; buying from a dealer should mean a hassle-free transaction for the client. The dealer handles the paperwork and DVLA procedures on your behalf.

Some of the most recent private number plate transfers we carried out were completed the same day. Here is a summary of the procedure; the client gets in touch with an enquiry about a particular registration. They will generally have a few questions to ask and providing they get the right answers an agreement is reached.

The client has the option of coming over in person with their V5C Registration Certificate (log-book). We have a coffee and a chat while the payment goes through and then complete the plate transfer via the new DVLA online facility. Minutes later the transfer is complete and the plates can be fitted to the car. The client contacts their motor insurer and tracker provider to notify the change of registration.

It is not convenient for every client to come over in person, so sometimes the client sends their vehicle documents to us. We complete the transfer and advise as soon as everything is complete. The plates can go on the vehicle and the new V5C Registration Certificate is sent direct to the client from DVLA Swansea.

The last step in the process usually involves the client taking a photo of their car or motorbike proudly displaying their new number plates and sharing it on social media.

If you are interested in buying a private number plate that you have seen on the Simply Registrations website, give us a call on 0113 288 7553.

Good News for Motorists in Northern Ireland with Personalised Number Plates

Personalised number plate transfers are set to become much easier for motorists in Northern Ireland from July 2014. The proposed merger of the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA) in Northern Ireland and the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in Great Britain brings with it changes to the registration assignment rules.

As things stand it is not possible retain a cherished number, or to assign a personalised plate from a DVLA issued V778 retention document to a Northern Ireland registered vehicle. All that will change from 21^st July 2014 as facilities currently available to motorists with vehicles registered at DVLA Swansea will be rolled out to motorists in Northern Ireland.

From Monday 14^th July 2014 motorists in Northern Ireland should send applications for assignments, transfers and retentions to:

Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency
Swansea
SA99 1DP

More information on how to place a registration on retention can be found here:
https://www.simplyregistrations.co.uk/retention-of-a-personalised-number-plate/

DVLA Local Offices to Close – All Work to Transfer to Swansea

The Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) Local & Regional Offices are scheduled to close by the end of 2013. All of the work currently handled at a local level is being centralised and will be processed at DVLA Headquarters in Swansea. We are currently in a transition period; some changes have been made and others are still being implemented. It has meant longer than usual turnaround times for number plate transfers and retention applications. This is having a knock-on effect in the motor trade with many car retailers unable to supply vehicles to their customers whilst they wait for important documents to arrive.

Summary of Changes so far:

1^st May 2013 – All trade plate applications dealt with at DVLA Swansea

24^th June 2013 – Post Office expands tax disc options

1^st July 2013 – All cherished transfer & retention applications dealt with at DVLA Swansea

22^nd July 2013 – Tax discs for new cars issued by DVLA Swansea. New law introduced allowing 14 day grace period for display of tax discs.

The change that concerns readers of this blog the most is the processing of all cherished number plate transfers and retention applications at DVLA Swansea. The stance from DVLA hasn’t changed and if you take a look at the official Twitter channel of the DVLA, the advice is to send all applications direct to Swansea. However, our experience suggests you will get a much quicker response if you take your application to the counter of your nearest DVLA Local Office.

From the 1^st of July 2013 if you handed in your application at a Local Office it was batched up and sent to Swansea. DVLA headquarters were quickly swamped with an overload of work whilst staff in the Local Offices found their days were dragging as they had very little to do. A couple of weeks later some Local Offices were instructed to only send a small number of applications per day to Swansea – all others were to be processed in-house.

At Simply Registrations we still use the DVLA Leeds Office and will continue to do so until it closes on the 13^th of December 2013. We are still able to complete same-day transfers at the counter when assigning a registration from a V750 or V778 to a vehicle. Cherished transfers and retention applications are not completed there and then, however the first part of the application which involves the issuing of a replacement tax disc & MOT Test Certificate is being handled at Leeds and the current turnaround time is 48/72 hours. The V5C Registration Certificates and V778 Retention Documents still take between 2 to 4 weeks to arrive from Swansea.

The hope is that eventually an online system will be introduced to enable much faster processing of cherished transfers and retention applications. Consultations investigating the possibility of making the paper tax disc obsolete, removing the insurance check when taxing a car and the probability that the paper MOT Test Certificate will be scrapped would surely help to speed things up.

For the time being the best available option is to make use of the DVLA Local Offices whilst they remain open for business. Not only does it seem to speed up turnaround times for plate transfers, you aren’t risking your application going missing in the post before it even arrives at DVLA HQ in Swansea. It is more important than ever before to make sure your application form is correctly completed. The staff at your nearest DVLA Office will check your paperwork at the counter whilst you are there. As some motor traders have recently discovered, it is incredibly frustrating to have your documents returned and your application rejected just because you forgot to sign the cheque or put a ‘x’ in the appropriate box on a V317 application form.

Are you thinking of selling a personalised number plate?

I previously wrote a basic guide explaining how to sell a private number plate. I want to take this opportunity to go into a bit more detail on the same subject, focusing on some of the options that are available to you. If you haven’t already seen it, you may want to have a quick read of the basic private number plate guide before continuing with this article.

Okay, I am assuming you are reading this article because you have a personalised number plate to sell. The first choice you have to make is most likely going to be determined by your own personal circumstances:

Do you need the money straight away, or are you prepared to wait a while?

I receive telephone calls and emails every day asking if we buy registrations. The answer is yes, but only if it is an attractive combination that meets our criteria, I ask the client; are you looking to sell outright for immediate settlement, or would you like us to advertise the registration on your behalf?

I always advise against selling outright unless you are desperate to get your hands on the cash. The reason; you will receive a lot more money if you are prepared to wait until we can find a buyer for your plate. To demonstrate this point; a gentleman rang this morning with a nice two-letter, two-number combination for sale, similar to RW 75. I said I would buy it for stock, today, for £7,000. As he doesn’t need the money quickly he asked us to advertise it for sale on his behalf. If we manage to find a buyer for his cherished registration at the price he is hoping for, he will receive £16,000 on completion of sale.

If you are going to approach several dealers with a view to selling your registration, make sure you understand whether the quote you receive is based upon an outright purchase, or a commission sale. The price difference won’t always be as vast as in the example used above, but there will be a difference. I suggested a much lower retail price for the registration in this morning’s example, but the gentleman wants to try an ambitious figure in the first instance. If after six months there hasn’t been any interest in his plate, he is going to reduce the price to a more realistic level.

Please note: I often see comments on motoring forums advising people to sell their private plates back to DVLA as you get a better price. This is absolute nonsense as DVLA do not buy registrations.

Which company is the best at selling number plates?

To help answer this question correctly we are going to separate personalised registrations into two groups.

Word or name resemblances – The first group is for plates that resemble a name or word – for example: CRA 1G, PAU 11L, SUS 4N, FA57 EST. If you have a registration to sell which falls into this group, it is important to select a company that accommodates name and word searches on its website.

Short, dateless registrations – The second group is for personalised plates that contain no more than three letters; the short, dateless versions such as: 52 D, 16 ES, 25 PK, 7 SLC. You are not as restricted on choice as most cherished number reseller websites can handle this type of search. Just test out a few websites to see how they present search results and make sure you are happy with how the website interacts with a potential purchaser.

DVLA offers a list of cherished number plate dealers via the web referral scheme: http://dvlaregistrations.direct.gov.uk/dealers

This blog post explains how the DVLA web referral scheme works: https://www.simplyregistrations.co.uk/dvla-personalised-registrations-web-referral-scheme/

You may prefer to choose a company which is a member of a registered number plate dealer association: https://www.simplyregistrations.co.uk/cnda-cng-mirad-number-plate-dealer-associations/

Personally, I don’t believe there is a company that ticks all the boxes and therefore deserves to be called the best at selling private number plates. At Simply Registrations we don’t have a word or name search facility on our website; however we do have a browse option which allows searches to be performed alphabetically. I’ve got to be honest and say that if you have a private plate to sell and it contains a word or name resemblance, you shouldn’t be solely relying on the Simply Registrations website to find a buyer for your plate. On the plus side we advertise regularly in motoring magazines and aim to include a selection of our clients’ registrations in our advertisements. The image above shows our latest full-page offering in What Car Magazine.

Hopefully you found the information in this blog post useful. Please like and share to help spread the word.