3 WEEKS TO SAVE CHERISHED PLATES

Expired personal registration numbers ‘dead’ by 18 December, says DVLA

The Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) and car clubs have urged enthusiasts with lapsed personalised registration numbers on retention to update their paperwork before it’s too late.

Cherished numbers with expired documents will be struck off the system, never to be applied again, by 18 December unless entitlement and retention certificates ( V750 and

V778) are renewed at a cost of £25, the DVLA has declared.

In official guidance released to Classic Car Weekly, Swansea has confirmed that it will not sell the lapsed marks on. It was unable to be quoted because of current pre-election purdah restrictions.

Registration marks bought before 9 March 2015 can be kept on retention for one, two or three years before being updated again; retention for personal plates bought after that date last for ten years before needing new paperwork. If the V750 and V778 is updated within these time slots, renewing both forms is free of charge. The move has surprised clubs, which are saying that the DVLA has made little or no effort to warn people of the impending deadline.

Rover Sports Register chairman, Mike Maher, said: ‘If the [new] procedure isn’t well publicised, it’s unfair to enforce it. Anyone with a plate on lapsed retention needs to examine their documentation – and quickly.’

Mike urged any collectors or deceased estates with plates to do the same: ‘A lot of value – sentimental and monetary – will be lost if people aren’t aware.’ FBHVC communications officer, Wayne Scott, said that the Federation suspected that the 18 December deadline was for bureaucratic, rather than financial reasons, but was seeking clarification from Swansea. He said: ‘Registrations that were on retention but have lapsed – and that did happen even before the current proposed changes – join other discarded registrations in a kind of limbo.

‘DVLA knows the status of them but chooses not to reissue them as age-related registrations nor, contrary to popular belief, do they currently offer them for sale. There has been some talk of DVLA trawling through this group looking for any potentially valuable marks but I think the task is considered too labour-intensive to be worthwhile.’

‘ We do believe that there is a risk of cherished numbers being permanently lost if their owners do not update paperwork. However, that risk has always existed and all that a retention holder has to do to retain a number is be organised and keep the retention certificate current.’

‘If the [new] procedure isn’t well publicised, it’s unfair to enforce it’