Court summons no insurance

Use a GDPR subject access request to get a copy of the recordings of your conversation with the Insurance company. If they have said on the call that you are insured, then, provided you have given them a true and complete description of the situation you believed (and had a valid reason to believe) you were not driving without insurance. If you can't get that recording then it will be very difficult to argue you were insured, as the date you purchased the car would be considered to be the date the car is yours, not the date it was registered to you, and from that date the driving other cars extension would not apply. This may/may not get the case dismissed and may/may not get the punishment reduced. It depends very much on the judge on the day. If you can't get this case dismissed then you will get a driving ban (either a direct ban from driving without insurance or from the penalty points). The judge may also decide that you would have been insured had you contacted the insurance company before being stopped instead of after.
Don't try to argue that you didn't own the vehicle at the time. You will not be able to convince a judge that a UK seller allowed you to bring the car here and make an appointment to re-register it without selling it to you (unless the previous owner is a close relative who is willing to stand in front of the judge and say that). Even if they will stand up and say it, there will be a question of why you didn't say that to the Garda the stopped you.
This doesn't get you out of the non-production of insurance.
You need to talk to a good solicitor, as your defence is a very non-standard defence. You are relying on the verbal statement of an authorised agent of the insurance company over-riding the contents of the written document and it will take a lot of convincing for the judge to accept it. How the argument is presented will be key to winning this case.

What you should have done is transferred your insurance to the new car (some insurance companies will require the VIN instead of the registration, and some will only allow a short period before the car has to have an Irish registration number) or continued driving your old car until the new car was registered.

square ball wrote: »

The Vehicle Licensing Certificate or logbook is a legal document.?

It's a legal document, but it's not proof of ownership

MinniexD wrote: »

No I asked previous times prior to the event as well as after event and I was told I was covered. If I didn't clarify before the incident I wouldn't have been driving the car.

What did you ask? Because if it was "Can I drive a car I have bought which hasn't been transferred to my name yet on my driving other cars extension?" and they said yes you have a terrible insurance company.

What does it say in your policy documents because that is what the judge will ask to see. Every policy document I have had says that the car can't be owned by me and you own something when you hand over the money, how else could you transfer your insurance if you don't own it?

Del2005 wrote: »

What did you ask? Because if it was "Can I drive a car I have bought which hasn't been transferred to my name yet on my driving other cars extension?" and they said yes you have a terrible insurance company.

What does it say in your policy documents because that is what the judge will ask to see. Every policy document I have had says that the car can't be owned by me and you own something when you hand over the money, how else could you transfer your insurance if you don't own it?

Once a buyer pays for the car, they have an insurable interest in it. The transfer of registered ownership is a formality and does not mean there is no valid insurance until it takes effect.

Claw Hammer wrote: »

Once a buyer pays for the car, they have an insurable interest in it. The transfer of registered ownership is a formality and does not mean there is no valid insurance until it takes effect.

Agreed again...Not sure why people still argue this... Pointed this out hours ago and people still saying "oh well if Shannon don't have your name it's not yours"..... Nonsense

When you pay the previous owner and he hands you the keys, you become the legal owner of a car. And the OP told the Garda that he had bought the car. So it's completely irrelevant who was the registered owner at the time the OP was stopped.

I'd also question the value of what the OP's insurance told her on the phone. It's telling that the agent she spoke to is unable to put his advice (that the OP was covered) in writing. That's because it's easy to be nice on the phone but a letter would have to be approved by a supervisor and (as it relates to cover) probably someone in legal so that looks like it's a non-starter. Why? Because she was not covered.

Could the OP get a transcript or recording of the call and bring it into court? Possibly, but what value will it have? The broker for the publicans who sued FBD recently was told by an FBD person in a phone call that the policy covered them for a pandemic. FBD refuted this but never denied that the phone call happened. If the advice given over the phone was binding on them, that case wouldn't have lasted more than an hour in the High Court. Instead the case ran on for several days and the legal costs ran into the hundreds of thousands. And the judge reserved judgement.

Why didn't the evidence of that phone call end the case and force FBD to settle? Because nothing that is said by an agent or servant of the company can vary the terms of the policy, that's why. Same applies here.

Which all leads back to something I have stated repeatedly on the insurance forum - you should never phone your insurance company and ask them about cover. Because you cannot rely on what they tell you. Read the policy document, that is the legal basis for your contract of insurance, not what a call agent tells you.

Every policy document I have ever read says that 'driving other cars' cover does not apply if you own the car. It couldn't be simpler - the OP was not covered to drive that car.

coylemj wrote: »

When you pay the previous owner and he hands you the keys, you become the legal owner of a car. And the OP told the Garda that he had bought the car. So it's completely irrelevant who was the registered owner at the time the OP was stopped.

I'd also question the value of what the OP's insurance told her on the phone. It's telling that the agent she spoke to is unable to put his advice (that the OP was covered) in writing. That's because it's easy to be nice on the phone but a letter would have to be approved by a supervisor and (as it relates to cover) probably someone in legal so that looks like it's a non-starter. Why? Because she was not covered.

Could the OP get a transcript or recording of the call and bring it into court? Possibly, but what value will it have? The broker for the publicans who sued FBD recently was told by an FBD person in a phone call that the policy covered them for a pandemic. FBD refuted this but never denied that the phone call happened. If the advice given over the phone was binding on them, that case wouldn't have lasted more than an hour in the High Court. Instead the case ran on for several days and the legal costs ran into the hundreds of thousands. And the judge reserved judgement.

Why didn't the evidence of that phone call end the case and force FBD to settle? Because nothing that is said by an agent or servant of the company can vary the terms of the policy, that's why. Same applies here.

Which all leads back to something I have stated repeatedly on the insurance forum - you should never phone your insurance company and ask them about cover. Because you cannot rely on what they tell you. Read the policy document, that is the legal basis for your contract of insurance, not what a call agent tells you.

Every policy document I have ever read says that 'driving other cars' cover does not apply if you own the car. It couldn't be simpler - the OP was not covered to drive that car.

If the o/p was told by a broker that he was covered by an underwriter, when he wasn't he can sue the broker on his professional indemnity policy. That would mean the o/p was covered to drive. What the o/p needs to do is get the brokers policy.

Claw Hammer wrote: »

If the o/p was told by a broker that he was covered by an underwriter, when he wasn't he can sue the broker on his professional indemnity policy. That would mean the o/p was covered to drive. What the o/p needs to do is get the brokers policy.

The broker's indemnity policy doesnot provide the cover required by the RTA. And sue them for what? This isn't about who is picking up the tab after an accident, did you bother to even read the first post? Where the OP said (in the first sentence) that she was stopped at a checkpoint.

But in any event, it wasn't a broker, she phoned the insurance company. This thread relates solely to a summons for driving without insurance.

Claw Hammer wrote: »

If the o/p was told by a broker that he was covered by an underwriter, when he wasn't he can sue the broker on his professional indemnity policy. That would mean the o/p was covered to drive. What the o/p needs to do is get the brokers policy.

That's not right and you're getting ahead of the situation. If the broker incorrectly told the OP that he was covered when he wasn't, he would indeed be able to seek compensation for professional negligence. But that will be a financial matter regarding the loss incurred by the claimant resulting from the action, it won't magically grant cover for the OP to drive under his insurance policy

As for seeking the brokers PI policy, that has nothing to do with anyone. Sue for compensation if you like, but the existence, or lack of a PI policy doesn't come in to it and you are not entitled to a copy of ANYBODY'S insurance policy

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

It's a legal document, but it's not proof of ownership

That's exactly what it is. The person whose name is on the logbook is the legal owner of the vehicle according to the Department of Transport.

If I buy a car off you today and tell you to wait until the start of next month to submit the change of ownership (to avoid paying motor tax for this month for example) and I get parking tickets or get caught speeding by a go safe van etc. who do you think is liable in the eyes of the law?

For all the world OP could have had an agreement with the car owner to test drive the car for a week but pay them a 'deposit' to see if they were happy with it and could have gone back to the owner to return their money if the car didn't suit them.

Lenar3556 wrote: »

I wouldn’t however undervalue the significance of a customer service agent of the insurer confirming that the policy did in fact cover him to drive the car. Employees of a business (or insurer) can indeed bind their employer to terms which falls outside the usual policy of a business. If the telephone call confirms that this confirmation was in fact unequivocally extended to the OP by the insurers call centre, it is evidence of some significance.

It’s not binding on the employer if it can be retracted, in which case it carries no weight whatsoever. As happened in the FBD case concerning cover (or lack of) for pandemic....

Paul Shanahan, who is a Business Development Executive with FBD, accepted that he told Noel Anderson – the managing director of The Lemon and Duke bar-restaurant – in early March that FBD’s policy covered business disruption losses caused by Covid-19.

Anderson, whose partners in the bar-restaurant include Irish rugby players Sean O’Brien, brothers Dave and Rob Kearney, and Jamie Heaslip, told the High Court yesterday that he switched to FBD because he had heard its policies covered coronavirus.

.....

Shanahan accepted that he informed Anderson in an email in early March that its policy covered losses that may arise due to Covid-19 in the event of a forced closure.

https://www.thejournal.ie/fbd-employee-bar-covid-insurance-5233572-Oct2020/

His statement was refuted by FBD. Had they been bound by it (as you claim they should have been), they would have been forced to pay the claim. Even though the plaintiffs (the publicans) had it in an email, FBD was able to assert that it did not form part of the terms and conditions of the policy.

If you have legal capacity to buy a car and pay over the agreed price, you own the car. The rest is just ifs, buts and maybes. That's the legalities of it

square ball wrote: »

I have bought cars in the past close to the end of a month and the seller has agreed to hold out transferring the car for a couple of days until the start of a new month.

Might be a stretch but does happen especially with people that know each other and occasionally with dealers. My uncle was a mechanic and used to often be given cars from the dealer he dealt with for weeks before handing over a penny.

A decent solicitor should be able to present this as a flimsy enough case against the OP if the car was only registered in their name after the OP was stopped at the checkpoint. Very hard for the judge to convict if all the paperwork states that someone else was registered as the owner at the time of the 'offence'

Based on what he has told us, I wouldn’t see it as flimsy at all. It will be very difficult at this stage to cast sufficient doubt at to the ownership of the car. A dealer would be somewhat different.

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP admitted to the Garda that they owned it and showed them the booking for the VRT inspection.

You are committing insurance fraud, which has serious consequences if found out, to avoid a few Euro of motor tax!

How do you figure I'm committing insurance fraud?