Personalised Number Plate Information

NUMBER PLATES:

Are you a cat lover with a few hundred quid to spare? How about a huge Dennis the Menace fan keen to show your appreciation via the medium of your motor? Well you’re in luck as the DVLA – the body in charge of car registrations in the UK – is holding 2017’s first live auction of registration numbers this week and among the plates on offer are WH15 KER ( yours for a starting price of £700) and BE11 ANO (a mere £400). The event – which starts on Wednesday – will see a total of 1,500 personalised registrations being auctioned to members of the public. The registrations on offer have been chosen by DVLA to suit all tastes, styles and budgets and range from plates that reflect names such as EL17 OTT, HA15 RRY and PA14 ULA through to quirkier offerings such as OUR 848Y, OLD 800K and YOU 105E. And fans of Harry Potter could find themselves spellbound by POT 110N which carries a reserve of £250. The agency will be aiming to build on the success of its live auction programme in 2016, which raised £25.6 million through five sales – setting a new record for a second consecutive year. Last year, the total sales of personalised registrations by the DVLA surpassed £147m, taking the total amount raised since the sales began in September 1989 to £2.4 billion. Sales by the agency suggest that interest in personalised plates has soared in recent years with a 150 per cent increase of registered bidders for its live sales since 2011. On average 9,500 customers com[pete for lots per auction. Adam Griffiths, of DVLA Personalised Registrations, said: “It’s been nearly three months since our last live sale, and I am really excited by our first sale of 2017 where some really great registrations are available to bid for. We have experienced two successive record-breaking years and, when you look through the catalogue at the registrations we have compiled for this sale, I am very hopeful that this success will continue.” He added: “Bidding in person is by far the most popular way to buy a registration and it is at the auction where you will find the real atmosphere – it’s a great day out and we make the experience as enjoyable and friendly as possible. If you can’t make it to the auction we offer free telephone, internet and absent bidding facilities”.

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2010 Car Number Plates

We're now just over a month away from the introduction of the 2010 number plate on all new cars hitting the road after the beginning of March.

While the excitement surrounding the introduction of new number plates may go over some people's heads, during the past few years a real demand has grown for personalised plates, with some selling for an absolute fortune at auction.

Music legend Elton John's former number plate ELT 70N recently went up for auction for just under £1,000, but that's nothing compared to the £113,815 one crazy person (in the nicest sense) shelled out on a 1 HRH number plate auctioned by the DVLA at the beginning of 2009. And even that has some way to go to surpass £254,000 paid to take ownership of the 51 NGH plate.

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A Statutory Off Road Notification is a declaration made by the registered owner of a vehicle that they are removing their car from the public highway.

By doing this, the person will no longer need to pay road tax, as the notification tells the DVLA that a vehicle is registered but not currently being used.

Those who have their insurance and road tax expire and don’t want to renew them may find it makes more sense to declare a SORN instead.

When do I have to make a SORN?
If one of the following situations applies to your vehicle you will need to declare a Statutory Off Road Notification:

You haven’t paid tax for your vehicle
You haven’t paid insurance for your vehicle
You want to break a vehicle down for parts before scrapping it
You purchase or receive a vehicle and don’t want to put it on the road
If you’ve sold a vehicle and been sent a V11 reminder letter, you won’t need to make a SORN, as you’ll receive a confirmation that you no longer have the vehicle within 4 weeks of informing DVLA you’ve sold it.

How do I declare a SORN?
People wanting to declare a Statutory Off Road Notification can go to the DVLA website to fill out the necessary details.

You will receive a refund for any full months of remaining tax, and won’t be able to use the vehicle on the road until you tax it again.

If you want to start the SORN immediately, use the 11 digit number on your vehicle log book (V5C).

If you want it to begin on the first day of the following month, use the 16-digit number on your vehicle tax reminder letter (V11) - but bear in mind this number can only be used once.

If the vehicle isn’t registered in your name you will need to tell the DVLA it’s off the road by post.

You can also send applications in the mail by filling in the V890 application form, or calling the DVLA vehicle service.

ext week the number plate “TAX 1” is up for auction – with bids expected to reach £100,000 – but anyone buying it might want to think twice.

That's because if your car is stolen or written off, it turns out not only is a personalised number plate not covered by insurance, you might lose it forever.

Personalised plates are getting more popular, with 374,968 auctioned off by the DVLA in 2016/17 alone. And while very few of these will cost more than a few hundred pounds, they might all be at risk.

The problem isn't just that the plates aren't covered, it's that unless you're careful when something happens to the car, they could be gone for good.

“A registration number is attached to the vehicle it is assigned to, not the person who purchased it,” said Matt Oliver from GoCompare Car Insurance.

That means if – for whatever reason – your insurance claims the car, they get the plates too.

A number plate for the Swiss canton of Zug has sold anonymously at auction for CHF233,000 ($253,353), breaking the previous record of CHF161,000.

For now, the buyer of the “ZG 10” plate remains unknown, as the item was sold on Wednesday at an anonymous online auction. Several other car and motorcycle plates were auctioned off at the event, the proceeds of which brought more than CHF500,000 to the treasury of the central Swiss canton.

The previous Swiss number plate auction record was set last March by a buyer who paid CHF160,100 for the privilege of owning the canton Valais registration number “VS 1”.

An Emirati businessman set the world record in 2008, paying 52.2 million dirhams (CHF14.4 million) for a plat displaying only the digit “1”.

A personalised registration plate is, by its very nature, very important to the owner and of special, sentimental value.

My wife and I bought one 10 years ago with a new car. When the dealer showed us the numbers it had available, we jokingly asked if we could get a plate that incorporated both our initials. A quick check with DVLA and, £399 later, we have that plate which is now on its third car.

My younger son has one too, bought for his 21st birthday by grandad as something he would keep the rest of his life.

You assume you will always have the plate, swapping it from vehicle to vehicle, but that may not be the case because it is assigned to a vehicle not the person who bought it.

Rare DVLA number plate TAX 1 – which may appeal to tax experts or taxi firms – is expected to fetch up to £100,000 at auction on Thursday which has prompted GoCompare to warn drivers with personalised plates about the insurance implications.

Personal registration numbers are increasingly popular, starting at £250 from the DVLA which sold 374,968 of them in 2016-17.

But GoCompare car insurance says drivers with a personalised plate risk losing it if the vehicle is stolen or written off.

It analysed 302 comprehensive car insurance policies which revealed only 19 specifically cover the loss of a personalised plate if the car was lost or stolen. The sum insured varied from £200 to unlimited.

When an insurance claim is made for the cost of a car, the insurer owns both the vehicle and the registration number assigned to it, even if it’s a personalised plate. The claimant can buy the registration number from the insurer, if it still owns it, for no more than the settlement price. But, if the vehicle has already been disposed of by the insurer, all rights to the registration plate go with the vehicle.

If a car with a personalised plate is stolen and not recovered, its owner will have to wait 12 months to get the plate back. To reclaim the plate, they will have to prove the car had a valid MOT and tax at the time of theft.

Similarly, motorists who have had a car with a personalised plate written off have to arrange for the number to be transferred to another vehicle or retained on a certificate in sufficient time before the claim is settled. Registration numbers move with the vehicle they are assigned to, not the person who bought it. So, if the vehicle is written off and the car scrapped, the number plate can disappear with it.

The policyholder will need to contact the DVLA and their insurer to let them know that they want to keep the plate. The insurer will then write a letter of non-interest and send it to the DVLA.

Matt Oliver, of GoCompare Car Insurance, said: “When you register a personalised plate to a vehicle you need to tell your insurer immediately, otherwise your policy could be invalidated and, particularly if you’ve paid a lot for a registration number, you should consider whether it’s properly insured.”

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Eric Morecambes Cherished Number Rescued!

Eric Morecambe's 1971 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow has been spared from the scrapheap at the last minute.

Peter Yates, who runs a wedding car firm in Morecambe, spotted the car in a Shrewsbury junkyard just 24 hours before it was due to be dismantled.

He said finding the car - which had the number plate EM100 when Morecambe owned it - was a 'miracle'.

The car was owned by the comic from 1971 and 1974 - as shown by the original order note - and Yates says it still smells of cigar smoke.

How the car came to be in a scrapheap is unknown. Seven years ago the car, including the personalised number plate, sold for £36,000 at auction.

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Record numbers of motorists are driving cars fitted with personalised numberplates amid a surge in “auto vanity”.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency sold a record 374,968 registrations last year, up 12 per cent in 12 months and almost five times the total in the mid-90s.

The trade in numberplates made more than £110 million for the Treasury in 2016-17 alone, a record annual total.

The rise coincides with an increase in the number of registrations made available by the DVLA, combined with a sharp rise in the value of rare plates over the past two decades.

In an era when we’re all supposed to be flaunting our individuality, the trend for personalised car number plates has apparently never been higher. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), which sells new and never-issued registrations, sold 374,968 last year, an increase of 12%.

Among private dealers, who sell pre-owned plates, business is just as good.

“For the past five years, [the market has] been steadily rising.” It is thought one reason is a personalised plate makes the age of the car less obvious. But he also says social media has played a huge part. “It’s, ‘Hey, everybody, look at me’,” he says.

People post pictures of their new cars on Instagram, and adding a private plate “seems to be something that people can use to boost their social media reach”.

At the entry-level end of the market, “registrations that start at £250, on average there are 800 of those sold every day.” He says one fairly common customer is the parent who buys a personalised plate for their child on passing their driving test, to go with a new car. “My typical client would be someone in their 40s or 50s, they’ve got a bit of money sitting about and always fancied a personalised number plate.”

At the extreme end, plates can fetch more than £500,000. In 2014, one classic-car dealer bought a “25 O” plate, reportedly for his Ferrari 250 GTO, for £400,000 (the final price, including fees, was £518,000) and a “250 L” for £130,000.

“The numbers that were selling for £1,000 in 1980 now sell for £150,000. What probably changed it was in the late 80s, when the government started to sell numberplates. We in the trade all thought it would devalue the numbers, but it didn’t, it just got more people interested.”

A personalised plate is “a prestigious thing. There’s a little bit of vanity about it,” says Saperia. As for those of us who believe it’s the mark of a bit of a berk, Saperia points out that the DVLA’s sale of personalised plates “bring more than £100m every year to the treasury”.

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It should be noted that there are no restrictions on using a vanity or cherished registration on a car that is newer than the original date of the registration plate, but it is prohibited to transfer a registration that is newer than the vehicle it is used on. This is to prevent the transfer of newer registrations to older vehicles as a measure to protect consumers.

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Fake number plates top the list of the many challenges the government and traffic police are going to face in implementing its clean-up plan for the Capital. According to norms, a number plate can be procured only from an authorised dealer and after producing the RC of the vehicle and other related documents.

However, when DNA accessed the black market, the reality seemed different. Shops providing fake registration number plates not only put on display a number of designs and styles but also did not bother to ask for document or ID proof.

"We have number plates starting from Rs 250 and the costliest is Rs 3,500. While the cheapest one has sticker digits, styles vary from stylish embossed fonts to illuminated digits with custom-made logos," said a dealer who owns a shop in Noida's sector 16 car market.

Another dealer, who has a shop in Connaught Place, says that a simple number plate would cost Rs 800 while a legal one with holograms can only be made after the customer provides transport authority's approval. "Last year, during the scheme, demand for fake number plates was high, the same is expected this year," he said.

When asked about the flourishing hidden business of fake registration number plates — which can lead to a severe national security threat — a senior traffic police officer said, "The only way this market can be curbed is to conduct raids on such shops and take legal action."

Price range
Rs 250 to 500 with sticker digits, simple, non-styled

Rs 500 to 1000 embossed stylish digits, custom made designs, change of language

Rs 1200 to 3500 number plates with fancy lights, golden silver design, change of fonts

Hidden Business
Shops at Connaught Place, Kashmere Gate, Karol Bagh and NCR provide fake number plates

Price range varies from Rs 250 to 3500 depending upon style

No vehicle-related document or ID proof required.

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By 1982, the year suffixes had reached Y and so from 1983 onwards the sequence was reversed again, so that the year letter - starting again at A" - preceded the numbers then the letters of the registration. The available range was then A21 AAA to Y999 YYY, the numbers 1-20 being held back for the government's proposed, and later implemented, DVLA select registration sales scheme. Towards the mid-1990s there was some discussion about introducing a unified scheme for Europe, which would also incorporate the country code of origin of the vehicle, but after much debate such a scheme was not adopted due to lack of countries willing to participate. The changes in 1983 also brought the letter Q into use - although on a very small and limited scale. It was used on vehicles of indeterminate age, such as those assembled from kits, substantial rebuilds, or imported vehicles where the documentation is insufficient to determine the age. There was a marked increase in the use of Q registrations

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