As well as the abolition of tax discs from 1 October this year, un-expired road fund tax (with or without a tax disc) will have no value and is not transferable to the next owner or user of the motorcycle.
This could cause major problems for the bike dealers who uses part-exchange motorcycles as transport without registering in their own name and adding an additional owner, warns the National Motorcycle Dealers’ Association. Also for many motorcycle dealerships the small portion of un-expired tax is often used to ride the motorcycle on demonstration with a prospective buyer or even for disposal to induce the trade buyers to purchase that motorcycle.
From the 1 October the ‘Registered Keeper’ part-exchanging or selling on their motorcycle will automatically be sent a refund for the un-expired portion of their tax, thus making the bike un-taxed for the new owner/user.
For dealers it means as soon as a motorcycle arrives on site as a part-exchange or trade purchase it must be considered untaxed and trade plates will be required to move it on the public highway for any reason.
Over the transition period, the trade has been granted a small dispensation: any trade or part-exchange motorcycle that currently has unexpired tax values taking them past 1 October will still be considered legal, as long as the motorcycle was put into trade (yellow section of V/5) prior to 1 October, and that exemption will only stay in force until the motorcycle is sold to a new owner and then it will need to be taxed, along with a keeper change notified to the DVLA.
For more information contact Stephen Latham on 07515-9752157