Registering an Imported Car in the UK

[4129R]

I received a reply to my email to DVLA, proving that one department does not communicate at all with another department.

1) I sent the letter and Certificate of Provenance from Lotus to a 2nd department, they accepted the car identity from those documents, and sent it back to the 1st department. When the 1st department rejected it again, they asked for proof from the manufacturer.

2) In the email below, he (2nd department) says he cannot find my vehicle in the 1st department on his system.

Here is the latest email:-

Apologies for the continued issues with registering your lotus, when I sent it back it shouldn’t have been rejected as far as we are concerned for anything related to the VIN number. In order to understand a bit better can you please send me a copy/photo of the rejection letter I for some reason am unable to find your vehicle in their system not sure if they have stored it under something else.

Then after I get the email reply, I get this email:-

We have received your email. If we need more information we’ll contact you.
Processing times
You should allow up to 10 weeks from this acknowledgment of receipt.
If you’ve already provided the requested images of your vehicle or any other supporting documentation, do not resend, or use this email address for an update on your application, you will not get your vehicle log book (V5C) sooner.
If you need advice
For general advice not relating to your current application for a vehicle log book (V5C), you can find the relevant contact details by following the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/contact-the-dvla

[4129R]

Letter dated 19th April from DVLA rejecting my application for the 5th time, for the same reason, despite my letter from Lotus explaining everything.

73023089R does not equal 74/3089R.

My original application was dated 15th September, so here we are 7 months and 9 days later.

[EuropaTC]

19th April eh ? Obviously first class postage or you'd still be waiting in May.

Ah well,  Photoshop time......

[4129R]

Email received from DVLA today from First Registration Support Team Admin Officer. "Please phone me".

DVLA (lady with very strong musical Welsh accent) "I apologise, your application should not have been rejected."

Me. "I have registered 4 cars previously.

You gave registration number TFS123K to a car and used a VIN number of   72062420R.
                                            FWW506M                           VIN number of   744259R
                                            FWW497M                            VIN number of  4376R
                                            AOA 76M                             VIN number of   74/4129R

Well, they seem to be consistently non-consistent in what they think is the correct VIN number, from the same import information !

Well............. nice lady traced my paperwork delivered to Swansea sorting office at 12.15 today. She will get it at 15.00 today, and will sort it out on Monday.       
 

[BDA]

I guess every bureaucracy has one or two people with common sense. Congratulations on finding her or in this case she finding you!

[SilverBeast]

 

Glad to see there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

[EuropaTC]

I'd hold your horses until you see if it's registered as a car. motorcycle, lorry, caravan or invalid carriage.....

 

[4129R]

I'd hold your horses until you see if it's registered as a car. motorcycle, lorry, caravan or invalid carriage.....

 

My next door neighbour has 7 horses, I just have 7 Europas.

I have a motorcycle licence, but not an HGV licence. If it gets registered as a caravan, I had better watch out for "travellers" borrowing it.

[4129R]

I have been told by email, that 3089R has been registered as GHH 289L.

Now I just have to wait for that other government department, the Post Office to deliver the V5C document, so I can get the number plates made. My guess it will arrive on Monday 20th, exactly 8 months after I sent my first application.

[BDA]

 

[4129R]

Letter dated 15th May from DVLA arrived today 17th May telling me the registration number and to go to a Registered Number Plate Supplier (RPNS) to get the plates. 

"A vehicle registration certificate (V5C) will be sent to you in the next 4 weeks."

I go to Halfords, the biggest UK car parts sellers to the public, and they say the cannot make up the number plates without proof of the registration number from a list of a number of DVLA forms. The letter informing me of the registration number does not have a V number on it, so cannot be used as proof to make up the number plates. "Have you got the old V5?" "No, I have imported the car and it has taken me 8 months to get this letter, and I am not going to wait another 4 weeks to get the V5C". "Sorry we cannot make the number plates without one of these forms ...........".

Luckily I was able to convince Motor Parts Direct that the letter from the DVLA was sufficient evidence, and they made up the number plates.

8 months of bureaucracy and sheer repetitive stupidity. Common sense died long ago, it seems.   

[BDA]

Sigh….

[jonclancy]

Hi Alex,

I’m about to embark on this journey. Would you mind if I PM you for some advice, please?

Many thanks!

Jon

[4129R]

Just to show how completely un-co-ordinated DVLA are, with no internal communication, I received an email from DVLA dated 15th May telling me the registration number, I received the V5 document on Saturday 18th May, and I have just been advised by my MP that they received a letter dated 10th May from the DVLA complaints department saying the letter from Lotus was insufficient and I need to send an HMRC NOVA document, which they returned to me with their letter of 15th May.

I shall now telephone the DVLA complaints department to complain that they do not have a clue what is going on.

Lady who wrote letter to my MP is not in the office until Wednesday. Lady who answered the phone in the complaints department "We can only rely on the information given to us by that department". In other words they do not investigate whether the complaint is valid.

[EuropaTC]

 
Stunning.

They are wasting their talents, they ought to be writing scripts for farces....