Motors FAQ>Taxation and ownership documents>Declaring a car off the road

colm_mcm

Since 1st October 2013, the process of declaring a car off the road has changed.

It is no longer possible to retrospectively declare a car off the road.

The declaration must be made in the month of expiry of your current motor tax disc.

If your car's tax is out, you'll need to pay any arrears and tax the car for a minimum of 3 months if you want to declare the car off the road in future.

You may declare a car off the road for between 3 and 12 months

If you have just bought a vehicle and do not intend to use it immediately, you will have ten days from the date of purchase to furnish a declaration of non-use.

You can cancel the declaration at any time by renewing your tax in your local motor tax office – the validity of the tax disc will commence from the first day of the month in which you tax the vehicle.

Click here to view RF150 form

Click here to view thread from lead-up to October 2013

BlackWizard

So I declared my car off the road in the middle of last year. I'm looking into maybe driving it again.

Is there any special process I have to go through or can I just get the stanard tax form stamped by my local garda with the correct off the road dates on it?

colm_mcm

Q11. What if I want to put the vehicle back on the road before the period specified in the declaration expires?


A11. You can cancel the declaration at any time by renewing your tax in your local motor tax office – the validity of the tax disc will commence from the first day of the month in which you tax the vehicle.

http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/MotorTax/QA-DeclaringaVehicleOffTheRoad/#Q11

corktina

you simply tax it. No need for stamps or anything

CiniO

I declared a vehicle off the road from 1st December.
I want to tax it from 1st March.
When I enter detail online on motortax.ie website, it says arrears are due from 1st December.
Is it not possible to tax off-the-road vehicle online?
If so - why not?

galwaytt

CiniO wrote: »

I declared a vehicle off the road from 1st December.
I want to tax it from 1st March.
When I enter detail online on motortax.ie website, it says arrears are due from 1st December.
Is it not possible to tax off-the-road vehicle online?
If so - why not?

I tried too, and rang Shannon and they said no - have to go in to CoCo office. ...ffs...

CiniO

galwaytt wrote: »

I tried too, and rang Shannon and they said no - have to go in to CoCo office. ...ffs...

Thanks for info.

That's bit mad.
We need to use the car from today or tomorrow and it's definitely needed next week.
There's no chance I will be able to pop over to motortax office in next week, as both me and my wife are working at all times during motortax office opening hours.
All we can really do is risk driving it, while it's still declared off the road, hoping that gard will believe in our story.

corktina

I had the same, the first of the month was a Saturday so I went in on the Friday to tax it and they wouldn't do it, had to wait until Monday before they could send out the disc.
It really isn't up to the Co Council to be worrying that I might drive the car on the Friday illegally, that's the gards job.
As it was I lost two days (actually three as obviously the disc didnt arrive until Tuesday)usage of the car and still had to pay the tax for them.

colm_mcm

Yeah, but you have to appreciate that they're using a computerised system and you were in the wrong month.

corktina

yes, but you can renew your tax early, so the mechanism to tax it in the wrong month is there.

JMSE

anyone know what happens in the following situation...

The car owner is deceased since late 2013 and the car tax is out as of end Feb '14, no declaration of non-use has been made on the car. If the car is to be sold soon, is there a problem looming re non-declaration or is there provision made for death of previous owner?

CiniO

JMSE wrote: »

anyone know what happens in the following situation...

The car owner is deceased since late 2013 and the car tax is out as of end Feb '14, no declaration of non-use has been made on the car. If the car is to be sold soon, is there a problem looming re non-declaration or is there provision made for death of previous owner?

Arrears for unpaid tax arise only when registered owner proceeds to tax the car.
In that case I'd imagine that's rather impossible.

colm_mcm

JMSE wrote: »

anyone know what happens in the following situation...

The car owner is deceased since late 2013 and the car tax is out as of end Feb '14, no declaration of non-use has been made on the car. If the car is to be sold soon, is there a problem looming re non-declaration or is there provision made for death of previous owner?

The new owner is only liable from when they buy it.

boro3000

Hi

I want to declare my car off the road. Familiar with the new system. However I have arrears of two months on the car with amounts to about €86 Euro.
Won't allow me to do this online. So heading to the tax office tmrow. Are they going to make me pay the €83 before they allow me to take it off the road. Or can this be paid the next time I want to tax it. Anyone had to do this?

kfog

You can only declare it off road during it's last month of current tax. Minimum period of tax is 3 months so you will have to pay for 3 months tax which will include the two months arrears.

mgbgt1978

Or 'sell' it to a relative (who can, if they want, declare it SORD) and 'buy' it back when you want to re-tax it...

Nothing illegal about it. Just following the rules.

colm_mcm

As above.
Let's say your tax expired at the end of May.
You tax it for the minimum 3 months from 1st July to end of September, and from start of June till end of July.
You can't declare a car off the road unless the tax is up to date, and you can't pay back tax without taxing ahead for min. 3 months.

boro3000

Cheers

slimjimmc

kfog wrote: »

You can only declare it off road during it's last month of current tax. Minimum period of tax is 3 months so you will have to pay for 3 months tax which will include the two months arrears.

3 months in addition to arrears.
colm_mcm has it right, unless Boro3000 transfers ownership to another person he will have to pay the 2 months arrears (May/June) plus tax for July-Aug-Sep at least.

booth70

Looking for advice please.....

I want to declare my car off road as I am leaving the country for about 6 months.

The current disc expires 31/10/2014 but I am leaving Ireland first week of September.I was going to declare it off the road from the 1st of November to the 30th of April

Am I right in stating that I therefore cannot declare the car off the road in the month of September as the disc expires in October......If that is the case is there a way of making the declaration in October when I am not in Ireland....i.e can I post the RF150 form from abroad in October

CiniO

booth70 wrote: »

Looking for advice please.....

I want to declare my car off road as I am leaving the country for about 6 months.

The current disc expires 31/10/2014 but I am leaving Ireland first week of September.I was going to declare it off the road from the 1st of November to the 30th of April

Am I right in stating that I therefore cannot declare the car off the road in the month of September as the disc expires in October......If that is the case is there a way of making the declaration in October when I am not in Ireland....i.e can I post the RF150 form from abroad in October

Of course.
You can do it online.

booth70

CiniO wrote: »

Of course.
You can do it online.

Didn't realise you could do it online.......Thanks very much

Agricola

Do you have to keep re-declaring a vehicle off the road once the maximum 12 month period elapses?

I received a final tax reminder today for a tractor which was declared off the road from Sep 1st 2013 to 31th Aug 2014. I never received any initial reminders about this.
I rang my CoCo office who said if the tractor is never going back in the road I can just return the form to Clare with a note saying as much. Is that correct?
It looks to me like the off the road declaration has run out and since I didnt re-declare it in time, Im now required to tax it as the vehicle is back on the system for the last couple of months.......

corktina

do you want to tax it now? If you don't, do nothing and when you do want to tax it, transfer ownership to your wife/brother/son and arrears disappear. Watch out that the Law doesn't change at some time though.

I wouldn't follow the Co Co advice though, as they will then look for a cert of destruction I'd guess.

Agricola

corktina wrote: »

do you want to tax it now? If you don't, do nothing and when you do want to tax it, transfer ownership to your wife/brother/son and arrears disappear. Watch out that the Law doesn't change at some time though.

I wouldn't follow the Co Co advice though, as they will then look for a cert of destruction I'd guess.

Yeah. Im thinking the same. The way the notice is worded it seems you either have it declared off the road, taxed, or scrapped, theres no grey area, so they would want a destruction cert.

Im happy to ignore it but looks like I won't get another reminder and they will start sending fines after this?

corktina

they wont. You wont have any trouble until you come to tax it, so make sure it's not you who next taxes it!

dinneenp

Hi,

A friends car is declared off the road May- July. She plans to declare it off Aug- Oct BUT is going to use it a handful of times from August- car garage, 2 or 3 essential trips.
Ignoring that this is illegal, if she is caught what is the outcome?
A fine, penalty points & have to pay the tax.
What would the fine be, how many penalty points & would she have to pay the tax from May or from August?

Thanks,
Pa.

colm_mcm

There was talk of heavier fines for cars driven while on SORD, but like many other things I don’t think it materialised.

Simple answer is she should tax it for 3 months. Whether she declared off road or not, the car will be taken off her for having tax out of date so long.

dinneenp

colm_mcm wrote: »

. Whether she declared off road or not, the car will be taken off her for having tax out of date so long.

Is that definitive?

biko

Yes, Gardai seize cars all the time for no tax (or other reasons).
Google it