Thread: trade in a car and get speeding fines after

That's why you should always go to the roads department or whatever it is called as soon as you sell a vehicle and notify it of your sale and you are no longer the owner. You can't rely on the buyer to do it. I've heard stories about people buying a car with several months of registration on it and not doing anything to transfer it, so the vehicle still officially belongs to the seller as far as the department is concerned.
I heard of a similar example with renting a property in which the new tenant did not take over the electricity bill and the previous tenant forgot to stop it and months later got a big bill.

I sold a Landy 30 years ago without RWC & still had some rego left.

5 years later I was stopped at a Police / Sherrif roadblock in my Telstra car & I found I had a warrant against my name to the effect about $5000 in unpaid speeding & parking fines .

The ARSEHOLE who may or may not be on here , Fraudulently kept the vehicle in my name but changed the garaged address to his mates house so he could then receive & pay the rego notices. Don't know why he would bother keeping on paying the rego, if he's would pull a low act like that.

So since I was still the legal registered owner I gave the Sherriff permission to seize the vehicle & it came up at Auction, I was there to 'buy it back, but the ***** paid the warrants & the item was withdrawn. Then I went to Vicroads and cancelled the Rego.

This photo of vehicle in question was taken some time after I sold it .

Similar thing happend to me too.
Sold my totally knackered Rodeo.
Did the guy a favour to let him have the plates to get home, thinking they'd do the right thing.
Paperwork filled out correctly, dated, signed etc.
Kept copy.
Got an notice from police of a speedign fine, 7 months later.
Went into cop station, showed them the paperwork, they said they'll chase it up.
Went to Vicroads, showed them paperwork, told them car sold 7 months ago, rego also not paid 7 months ago! .. Vic roads said they'll chase it up.

That was back in about '07-'08 ish .. never heard from police or Vicroads again.

Now .. no more nice guy. If they can't tow the car away, no sale ..
Give the bastards an inch and they bloody well take more than just the mile.

These things are hard to sort out over the phone, but very easy in Court. Get your mate to log onto Fines Vic, put in the fine numbers and click on ‘Go to Court’ bit for each of them. He’ll then get a letter about 2 to 3 weeks later with either a Court appearance date or something that says he’ll get another letter with the date when it is known. Appear at the appointed day and time, produce said paperwork, tell the Magistrate what he’s done to try and resolve it out of Court and the Magistrate will throw the case out and the paperwork gets done properly after this happens.

PITA but sometimes it needs to go down this path to be resolved as no one wants to take responsibility.

I wish him him all the best, have gone through similar with a friend with unpaid tolls after the car was sold. Took months to sort out and the Courts were the only ones who managed to do it in the end.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

That's why you should always go to the roads department or whatever it is called as soon as you sell a vehicle and notify it of your sale and you are no longer the owner. You can't rely on the buyer to do it. I've heard stories about people buying a car with several months of registration on it and not doing anything to transfer it, so the vehicle still officially belongs to the seller as far as the department is concerned.
I heard of a similar example with renting a property in which the new tenant did not take over the electricity bill and the previous tenant forgot to stop it and months later got a big bill.

But this was traded in at a licenced car dealer, so they should have legal done their bit and reported it to vic roads.

My sister bought a vehicle form a car dealership, got pulled up twice at a camera recognition site , the second time the policewoman told her just get buy new number plates as the ones on the cr are on the system for unpaid fines., if she didn't do this she would be pulled over again in the future , she was out of pocket for new plates and inconvenienced because the system couldn't get it right.

Can't assume car dealers will pay the cost of doing it, or be bothered.

We sold the Cooks Camry to a couple of young Brits to travel around Oz. All the paperwork done by us and them and off they went. Then we received a couple of demands for payment of unpaid tolls for using various roads in Vic.
Yet the Dept. of Transport here admitted they had the paperwork showing it was sold .... anyway they sent us a form which we then scanned and forwarded to the toll road people and they accepted it.
But why when they already had the correct paperwork from us and the purchaser did the slack sods at the department tell them we were the registered keepers?
Just sheer bloody incompetence from those too lazy to check things properly I suppose.
Happened to our son as well years ago, sold a car and then got loads of speeding fines although all the paperwork had been sent in..... slack lazy sods in public sector jobs they have for life.
AlanH.

I think car dealers will leave the car registered in your name untill they move it on , other wise they would need a RWC to change it into there name then change it again when it sells.