Following on from the Bulletin last week regarding the changes to the paper tax disc and trade plates below are a selection of questions and answers from the DVLA’s Vehicle Tax Changes Webchat.

Andrew Moody of Retail Motor Law was asked a number of questions which are below together with a selection of other questions asked which DVLA answered.

PRESS RELEASE 3 OCT 2014

Retail Motor Law (RML) agrees with many of the findings in the long-awaited Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report on the UK’s private motor insurance market, but questions the insurance industry’s ability to fix itself.

The CMA, previously the Competition Commission, is the government department responsible for ensuring markets work well for consumers and businesses. Its investigation into the motor insurance market was initiated in 2012 after the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) found: “evidence that insurers compete in a dysfunctional way that may push up premiums for drivers by £225m a year”.

Andrew Moody, managing director of RML (who spent 15 years working as a car mechanic and panel beater before retraining as a barrister and solicitor), commented: “This report confirms my worst fears. The CMA has identified corporate practices which push up insurance premiums and put pressure on vehicle repairers to do things on the cheap. Given what’s at stake in terms of road safety, is it right to trust the insurance companies to fix these problems?”

There are a number of employment law changes that took effect on the 1 October 2014, including:

The annual increase in national minimum wage (NMW).

The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2014 SI 2014/2485 enact the biggest cash increase in take home pay for low paid workers since 2008, as the rate for workers aged 21 and over increases from £6.31 to £6.50. The new rate for 18 to 20 year olds is £5.13, the new rate for those under 18 is £3.79 and the new rate for apprentices is £2.73. See recent RML article

We repaired a car and parked it outside waiting for the owner to pay before he collected the car. We never let cars go unless we receive payment and if a customer wants to inspect our work we always send an employee with the keys so that the customer cannot simply drive a car away until our invoice is paid.

Unfortunately the customer, seen on CCTV, returned with a duplicate key and drove the car away without paying our invoice. We called him in the morning to say the repair had been completed; he came in the afternoon and took the vehicle.

What can we do?

You could sue the customer in law and probably the first action would be for breach of contract, there are other actions you could include. If the value of the outstanding invoice is less than £10,000 it is likely to be a small claim, RML assists members with the completion of court documents and civil litigation so become a member of RML’s legal subscription service so we can help.

Prior to commencing civil litigation you should contact the customer, by text and inform him that you will report the theft of his vehicle to the Police if he does not contact you with 1 hour, or pay the outstanding invoice. Remind the customer that if he is convicted of theft he could be sent to prison for a maximum of 7 years, so this is likely to encourage him to pay. RML will assist members by drafting a suitably worded letter/email/fax/text to the customer which you can send and which hopefully will encourage your customer to pay.