Reimporting from UK + change of owner

ps200306

Hi all, I realise there are many threads on importing a car from the UK but this situation is a bit different, and leaving me very confused. Please bear with me...

Car was bought and first registered in Ireland in 2006. It was then brought by the owner to the UK when they moved there in 2010, and was re-registered with the UK DVLA. Now, in 2015, the current owner wants to sell or give the car to a sibling back in Ireland who will reimport it.

Now, I understand that if the current owner was moving back to Ireland themselves, they could just change back to the original Irish registration by doing a change of particulars form, RF111. There is no VRT due because of the original pre-2013 Irish registration, as per this note from Revenue. They could also tie up the UK end by sending the V5C/4 section of their V5C registration certificate to DVLA to notify them that they are permanently exporting the car.

However, as I said, there is also a change of ownership involved here. So, going by the information in page 8 of this UK booklet: "What to do if you are selling your vehicle privately to someone that does not have a GB address", my understanding for what happens at the UK end (all of which I am assuming can happen on the same day as car is exported) is:

• Seller gives buyer an informal invoice (possibly for zero) just to show transaction took place.
• Seller completes sections 6 and 10 of V5C registration book.
• Seller and buyer jointly complete section 8 of V5C registration book.
• Seller gives buyer the whole V5C
• Seller notifies DVLA by post (N.B. do they have to wait for anything in response before change of ownership is "official"?)
• Buyer does not have to notify anything to DVLA but uses V5C as evidence of ownership in Ireland.

When the car comes back to Ireland, according to the aforementioned note from Revenue: "The Motor Tax office should be contacted in these cases." It is clear there is no VRT due. However, this is where I have hit a brick wall because I did contact the Motor Tax Office and they said "contact Revenue". I managed to harangue the motor tax office into revealing that if the car was previously registered and marked as exported on their database, they can mark it as reimported and reissue the original log book. Now, of course, if they literally mean the original log book, it is in the wrong name since ownership will have changed in the UK. But they didn't seem to understand my objection here and said "ring Revenue". Needless to say, there isn't even a number to contact Revenue about this issue because they say plainly on their website it's nothing to do with them. The only number available is a callback service where you have to have some sort of prior open application. So I am currently stymied by red tape.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

(P.S. Just to further complicate things -- what about the NCT? Obviously it can be applied for once the vehicle is re-registered, but a) will it show up as being 6+ years overdue its NCT, and b) since there is a long waiting list and penalty points now being issued for late NCT, does the car have to be kept off-road until that happens too?)