Is the private plate mine!?

[pink fee]

Hi! I have just bought a car that was cat d damge so sold. A garage bought it and fixed it and it has an MOT and all fine and dandy. But when they bought the car it had a normal plate on it and they were told when it went for MOT the private plate was still registered for that car. They put the private plate back on and I bought myself a lovely little car! But now I am a bit worried that the original owner still has the plate on his car. Do I own the plate or will he? and if he gets speeding tickets etc will they come to me if he has the plate on his car? I have address on the V5 so should I call and ask!? Any help greatly appreciated!!

[oldhenry]

the government own all numbers, they let you use them , very kind of them.
If you have a number assigned to a car you own then you can assign it to a new car of 'sell' the number to someone else, by assigning it the number is never owned but is used.
It is important to see that only one number is being used at once, as when you assign the number to a new car the DVLA assign an old number to that car.
As at a local DVLA office - seems the best place to start

[pink fee]

Thanks Henry! I called DVLA who confirmed the plate is assigned to my car but agreed it is likely the original owner is displaying it too. They said I have to wait till something happens like them getting points before they get invloved. Bit annoying to be honest. Think I will just sell the plate ASAP!! Thanks tho!

[Catso]

A similar thing happened to a friend of mine: he wrote off his car, which had a personal plate.

The story as he told it to me: technically the personalised registration belonged to the insurance company, because they 'bought' the car after it was written off, and without him having chance to change the registration back and put it on retention. It took him loads of phone calls before they'd agree to let him have his personalised registration back. He then put it on retention, pending repalcing his car.

[black206gti]

technically id say the plate is yours but if u want to be safe why dont u take the plate off( put it on retention) and ask the dvla to supply u a reg plate to use and wait to see if the tax form comes to u or the previous owner, if it u then u can sel the plate on register it back onto u'r car