Selling cherished UK reg. numbers

S Line

I work near an NCT centre and at least once a week you see a UK classic lining up to get ZV’d. It got me thinking about the old UK reg. UK reg’s are transferable and worth money (depending on desirability I know). Has/Do Irish people off set the price of their newly purchased classic by selling the reg.???
I often see in the magazine classifieds reg’s for sale and ‘on retention’ ready to be transferred. So if I buy the car and register it with the Irish revenue and not Swansea can I still sell the reg.?? Or could you arrange it with whomever you are buying the car from to sell it at the same time as you are taking the car and offer them a percentage.

bugsntinas

we bought a car about 4 years ago with a plate worth around £600 but we missed out because the car was collected for us and the seller sent out his bits to the dvla at swansea.was told by them that once they are told the car has/is being exported the reg then becomes non existant.

S Line

So basically you would have to be a bit coordinated with the UK seller. They could perhaps sell the reg a month beforehand and be issued with a new less desirable number and then decide a month later that they need to flog the car as well??


This might be a bit crafty, but not illegal. After all they needed to get cash by selling the reg, it didn’t solve their money problems so now they need to sell the whole car??

A dealer might be a better bet, surely they are allowed to maximise their profits by selling reg’s separately (say that somebody liked the reg because the letters were his initials and did not want a classic car). Once they know the car is going abroad surely they might as well make a few extra bob than see the reg die, they could sell the reg and give you half the amount as a discount.

I’m sure most people would like to see any classic car they might be selling stay in their own country. But at least the cherished reg. would survive, even it if it’s on some toff’s BMW X5 or similar

I know that most of the value is in pre 1964 age-less plates but what about for example a Porsche 911, G911-XXX surely another UK Porsche driver might as well have this reg. that have it cease to exist once it hits our shores

Or is doing he above while not illegal not proper behaviour of people claiming to be ordinary decent citizens ??

bugsntinas

ours was on a y reg cortina so not that old.i suppose you'd be well away if you had a good seller to start with that way i should imagine you could get them to put it on retention for you.another way would be if you had friends/relations in the uk get the car registered to them,get them to sell the reg and send you the money.can't see anything illegal about it as all you're doing is selling a reg number.

corktina

Dealers have lists of numbers for sale which they claim are worth £££££s .In fact the only ones worth anything are the ones people want to buy, most of the ones you see for sale this way are being offered "on behalf" of the owner and most of them never find a buyer.

darragh o meara

Missed out on selling a plate a few years ago ( found out the hard way ) had a pug 205gti with the plate PZ05 GT1. Only found out after I got home I couldn't sell the bloody thing, I even paid extra to keep the plate

Anan1

From memory, you'd have to register the car to a UK address with the DVLA, then put the plate on retention, and then export the car. Seems like a lot of hassle unless you're sure the plate's worth good money.

galwaytt

...I missed out on the private plate value on my 968 when I brought it in, as well.......£500

Basically, if the car you're buying has a 'cherished' reg, do a deal with the seller to get them to get an age-related plate for the car, and get the price of the car down by an amount.

Or, if you buy the car and take it away, get on to one of those companies BEFORE you take it home - they can do the transfer for you.

However, it is all about timing. If the DVLA are notified of the car's export/sale, before the plate transfer, the 'cherished' reg is lost to the system.....lose-lose.:(

getz

if you have imported a car with a unusual UK plate,the chances are the DVLA has sold the plate on

mattroche

I bought a Merc last year which had a cherished No. (xxjyb) transfered the car into my name with U.K. address, and put the car on (Retention). the D.v.L.a. issued me with a new Reg. No., which was the orignal reg. No. when the car was new. I phoned afew of he No Plate sale specialests and they said they would sell the No for me and guarantee me £ 3000. if I gave them the sale. I asked them for a buy it now price, and the offered me £375 !to take it into stock! I advertised in the Merc. Gazette at £ 1500 and had several buyers. I sold it to an Irish man who wanted to put it on a Rolls Royce that he had just bought. His initals were J.Y.Brown, he would have paid a lot more for it, but I waas quite happy, as I had paid £1000 for the car. The car MUST have a current M.O.T. and I think TAXED, and a U.K. Address, it took about 1 month to complete the transaction. I hope might help anyone in a simular situtation

mgbgt1978

AFAIK a UK reg had to be associated with a vehicle....you couldn't just keep the reg no. without having it "connected" to a vehicle.
This meant that a lot of the bigger Cherished reg companies always had ads in the back of the Motorcycle weeklies looking for cheap mopeds.
I don't know if the same still applies, but could be an option for someone importing a car to here. By buying a cheap moped and registering to a friend (or a friend-of-friend) in the UK you could import your car and sell the reg whenever a buyer turned up.

mattroche

I remember back in the !90 when the H123abs No. came out, the DVLA were selling selling these No., but you had to put them on a vehicle, and indeed people put them on Honda 50, ect. that may still be the case with new No. issued by the DVLA in order to retain them. However, if you buy a vahicle with a cherished No. the requirement is the vehicle must be in your name, must have a valid MOT, and I think Taxes. The DVLA will then issue you with a rentention certficate which is about £135, and lasts for I think 3 years. This can be sold on to a new owner, or put on another car that you may have, within that peroid. It is fairly easy to do it.

corktina

Quite right,the non-transferable numbers such as you mention must stay with the vehcile. Cheerished numbers are transferable though and can be held on retnetion

WHY DON'T WE DO THIS HERE!