10:58 am, December 8, 2016
ACCORDING to a BBC investigation, car dealers selling pre-registered cars and retaining logbooks for up to 90 days are putting consumers at risk.
Yesterday’s BBC Radio 4 ‘You & Yours’ show revealed that in some cases the retailer is holding on to the V5 document for months before changing the registered keeper in order to secure their bonus. The show claims that this means car buyers are being put at risk of invalidating their insurance or driving a car declared off the road.
When it comes to pre-registered cars, to qualify they must be kept off the road for 90 days before they can be sold on to a consumers.
NFDA director Sue Robinson explained that she was ‘concerned’ but that this was likely that ‘as dealers are required to keep vehicles for 90 days to qualify for some bonuses, that could incentivise this type of activity,’ in an interview with the BBC.
Car buyer Andrew March told the BBC: ‘I couldn’t drive the car because it had been declared off-road. The car log book had been withheld so I couldn’t re-tax it.’
While drivers can insure their vehicle, despite not being the registered keeper, if the new owner is unaware of this factor they can run into trouble. If a car buyer has, unknowing, mislead their insurance company, were a serious incident to happen they would not be insured.
In the case of speeding fines or tickets, these will also be sent to the address the DVLA has on file.
Car Dealer Magazine founder James Baggott commented: ‘The issue here is transparency. If dealers are up front with consumers about what they are getting, there’s not problem and they can act accordingly.
‘It’s a grey area in our industry and these will always cause conflicts between sellers and buyers because, at they end of the day, both parties are using a loophole to get a better deal.’
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