Vehicle Tax

Treat it as a lesson learnt and tax it at least a day in advance of wanting to use it.

peedee

Oh boy reading your post took me back many many years.

I did a few years in the County Council on vehicle licensing. Including untaxed reports.

In those days if vehicles were taxed at the public counter, in person, there was a date stamp with the time for just this occasion. Or more particularly those stopped and paying after the event.

Keep your email and continue discussions. You should be fine. 

Additional unwanted stress but that's progress for you. Old days you'd have had a physical disc to display 😉

Why leave taxing your vehicle to the last minute? As peedee says next time tax it a day or two earlier and avoid the  problem.

 I will give myself 5 black marks for being a naughty girl! I don't usually tax it until nearer to when I am due to go away (although not as late as the same day), because, sometimes there is a problem so I can't go - but in this case, I simply forgot until the day before and I was tied up with other things so waited until the next morning.  That being said, if the DVLA send an e-mail  within 3 minutes of my taxing the M/H, to verify that I have done so and that they have taken the payment, then surely one would assume that it was now on their system and as the penalty letter was dated the 21 June, they should definitely have known by then.  If it is not almost instantaneous, they should advise people that, that is the case.  In future, I will take your and Peedee's advice and tax it a few days prior to using it.

It is not something that had occurred to me before, but of course there would have been people who tried to get round being penalised, by taxing their vehicle after they have been caught, so the date and time would have to have been stamped to stop them doing so.  I did keep the e-mail - I am a bit paranoid about keeping things like that, but I object to the DVLA inferring that  I had committed an offence.  I didn't agree with doing away with tax discs and from listening to the news and reading the papers there are numerous people who don't tax t(or insure or MOT) their vehicles but drive around anyway and one wonders how they get away with it!

I wonder if its a case of systems not updating the information until over night on the day of taxation, this would explain why you got the penalty notice? I would be surprised if the notice wasn't rescinded when you provide the information. There is an App called Vehicle Smart which you can use to see if a vehicle is taxed, so in your case you would have been able to see the tax status of the vehicle on the day of departure. 

David

You can also check the taxation status on the Govt’s own DVLA website and I’ve noticed it takes a couple of days to update which could explain a lot. 

https://www.gov.uk/get-vehicle-information-from-dvla

 .... there are numerous people who don't tax t(or insure or MOT)

in the case of MOT it would seem that you can drive almost all year without MOT & not get caught. A few years back, a car of ours was without MOT for about 10 months purely due to an oversight ..... It was only when the system wouldn't let me tax it that I realised. 😳

if it takes a couple of days, then DVLA should wait a couple of days before they send out their fines.

So you get 5 black marks and are a naughty boy as well! But your lack of MOT was an oversight, not something which you did purposely and fortunately, many garages now notify you if your MOT is due.  Unfortunately, however, many people have no intention of paying anything to keep their vehicle on the road and those of us who do pay, end up paying for those who don't.