Cloned car advice

[Will]

You wouldn't need to retain the plate, the DVLA (to the best of my knowledge) have never issues an older plate to another car unless it has significant value.
Even after 5 years I put my private plate on retention and got the old original plate back on the car before I sold it.

Not sure if you missed the point of putting the existing plate onto retention.

The idea is by doing so the DVLA have to issue a replacement registration number. This is useful if you don’t have/don’t want a cherished registration mark to assign.

 

[Doodle]

Not all number plates are eligible for retention - there are specific examples (i.e. Q-plate) but a definitive statement of what doesn't qualify seems to be elusive. You will find out very quickly the moment you put it into the online system, it will come back with "This registration cannot be retained"

I would expect the first-issued registration wouldn't be part of the exclusion group though.

 

[markjay]

Not all number plates are eligible for retention - there are specific examples (i.e. Q-plate) but a definitive statement of what doesn't qualify seems to be elusive. You will find out very quickly the moment you put it into the online system, it will come back with "This registration cannot be retained"

I would expect the first-issued registration wouldn't be part of the exclusion group though.

The issue is that I will need the cooperation of the finance provider, who are the registered keeper and have the V5C - I imagine that they will accommodate a simple request to put private plates on the car, but I'm not it will be easy to explain to them that I want to place the original plates on retention - we'll see how this goes.

 

[Will]

One random thing I remember about the retention scheme:

I bought a car a few years ago that had been registered with a NI plate, which I didn’t really like.

I didn’t want a cherished plate for this particular car so decided to transfer the original registration onto a retention certificate and paid the appropriate fee.

DVLA then issued an appropriate plate for the car (London registered) and I was all set.

Had the old plate on retention and decided it wasn’t worth anything so surrendered the plate to the DVLA who then issued me a refund.

So cost to change was nothing from memory