Do you have a safe place in your house where important documents seem to disappear? Don’t worry, you are not alone, it happens more often than you think. You need to scrap your vehicle, and despite turning your house upside down, stopping just short of ripping out walls, you cannot find the V5C. Can you still scrap your car without the distinctive red and pink document?
The Good News
Well, the good news is that you do not have to have the logbook to scrap the car; it is not a legal requirement. You sometimes find that a dodgy scrap yard will refuse to take the car unless you agree to pay £25 to replace it, and once they have taken this money they don’t bother as there isn’t a need. Of course, you can replace the logbook yourself if you want to before going ahead with the scrapping. If you decide to proceed just follow the steps below to ensure that you cover yourself.
Use an AFT
AFT stands for the Authorised Treatment Facility. First of all, this is a legal requirement, and you can actually get a load of fines if you do not. DVLA will be looking for the confirmation that comes in from such a business, a Certificate of Destruction. If this doesn’t come in after you inform them of the scrapping, you will be in trouble. To confirm the legal process has been followed, you will receive your copy of the certificate within seven days, which you can just retain for your records. You also need to may any payment and accept any payment via cheque (England and Wales only) or bank transfer, cash transactions are also not legal in this process. Failure to use an AFT can leave you wide open to being the registered owner of a vehicle that could be sold on without your knowledge. Consider how you will get the car to the AFT as if the car has previously been subject to SORN it will need transport to get there you will not be able to drive it. The AFT can usually arrange this for you at a cost.
Tell DVLA
You then need to inform DVLA yourself, which can be done online with the V5C if you have it, but as in this case we are working on the principle that you don’t, you will need to make sure you write to them and include all of the following information:
Vehicle registration number
Make and model
The exact date of sale
Name and address of the scrapyard and your insurance company
Failure to include any of the information can lead to the notification no being accepted (of course you also need to be the registered keeps, and your data should match that held by DVLA). If they do not accept your letter, you will still legally own the vehicle. Make sure you tell the AFT you do not have the logbook and they will be able to assist you will the process of de-registering a car.
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