Road Tax Online

[Vaux-Man-G]

Guys,

I may need to tax a car tomorrow which has no tax on it at the moment (not a renewal).

As my insurance certificate will take about 3-5 working days to come through, I was thinking of doing it online via the DVLA site.

Can someone please advise that once I have insured my car and then go to tax it online, will I be able to drive my car even without the physical valid tax disc being present?

I know someone once did this to a renewal, and drove around a week without the valid tax disc) although it was licenced online).

Just wondering if this will work for a new application.

The car will be insured at the time of taxing;
The car will be in my name at the time of taxing;
The car will be SORN declared;
The car does have a valid MOT.

Let me know.

Thanks.

[Guyver1]

yep you should be fine, if the tax is delayed in the post, its not your problem, a lot of bikers now carry there tax disc on their person as they get stolen off the bike, they just have a note in the tax disc holder stating the disc is with them

[gtr1000]

IIRC, the disc HAS to be displayed. but I'm just trawling the DVLA web site.

[Vaux-Man-G]

I have just read this on the MID site

"For private individuals it is the responsibility of the insurance provider to get details of a policy or changes on MID within 7 days of the effective date".

My concern now is that I would be insuring my car about 5 mins before applying for tax disc online!

[gtr1000]

If you start the online tax application, it checks out whether the MOT and insurance details are logged. If not (eg. insurance), it rejects your application.

This doesn't really answer your question about displaying a valid tax disc I know, perhaps the boys in blue on here could help?

[neverlandandy]

i was of the opinion that your disc had to be displayed as well and thus applied for at least a week early if doing it online or by phone

[JKB89]

I'm fairly sure that you can drive with out the tax disc on (just keep the old one in) and print out a reciept from the online site when you purchase it -

If you do get pulled then the police will just check and clear it through , it's all on their database anyway isnt it?

I think that's right - HTH

[solorider]

at the moment you can get done for not displaying a tax disc,dvla do plan to change this but i dont know when this comes into force

[robster23]

The tedious bit is that the offence is as others have said "Failure to display" not whether you have one or not. Depends on the copper who stops you!

In reference to sorting the insurance just prior to applying - the DVLA depend on a database to check if you are taxed - i'm not sure how quickly this is updated so it may take longer than a few minutes for DVLA to recognise that you have got insurance and to process you application.

hth

[john_k_sri]

Yes, good idea to print off and keep with you confirmation of online tax renewal, as it proves you have renewed online and payment has been accepted, although technically you would still be liable for prosecution for not displaying a current valid tax disc.

The '14 days grace' period of old has well and truly been done away with.

I would also advise having your insurance certificate with you, especially if the database that the police check against has not been updated for your vehicle (particularly if you have changed insurer) There was a right old furore over this a year or two back when legally insured drivers had their vehicles taken off them because the database was not up to date.