Hi all,
I recently got my Scorpa registered for road use. It is a 2003 bike and had never been registered before. DVLA rejected my application three times for different reasons instead of telling me all the things that I needed to do in the first rejection. Anyway, I thought I'd share with you all the procedure I had to follow to get my bike on the road. Hope you find it useful.
1. Get your bike MOT'd (full or day time use only depending on if bike has lights etc.)
2. Ring DVLA and ask them to send you a V55/5 Application for first vehicle tax and registration of a used motor vehicle
3. Ring HMRC Personal Transport Unit on 03000 583020 to check if your bike is in the NOVA (Notification of Vehicle Arrival) system. If not ask them to send you a form. There is a form online but you can't use that because you won't have all the information & it won't let you proceed.
4. Fill in the NOVA form as much as you can & write a covering letter explaining anything you need to. If bike was imported to UK properly by a dealer then chances are you won't be liable to pay any VAT or any fees. I didn't have to pay a penny. HMRC will get back to you pretty quickly & tell you that your bike is on the system & give you a reference number plus a letter saying there is no VAT due.
If your bike is not on the NOVA system DVLA will reject your application.
5. Get a dating certificate. I had a bit of trouble with this because the original importer and original manufacturer are no longer trading. People who claim to be able to supply you a dating certificate for any bike couldn't supply me one because they either had incorrect information which conflicted with what I knew or they only dealt with Japanese bikes. I managed to get a certificate from Sherco factory who now manufacture Scorpas but DVLA rejected it. Don't know why - I couldn't get any sense out of the bloke I spoke to. Eventually the top people at Birketts especially a lady named June came to my rescue and the certificate she provided me was accepted by DVLA.
As a courtesy to Birketts please ensure you have either paid any VAT due or have a letter from HMRC to say there is no VAT due so that it reassures them that they won't somehow become liable for it.
6. Once the bike is on NOVA system, fill in the V55/5 form as best as you can - all I filled in was tax class, make, model, type of vehicle, colour, number of wheels, fuel type, chassis no. , engine no. & cc. The rest of application was blank. Don't forget to fill in year of manufacture & question 50 about type approval. If older than 10 years you don't need type approval but you need to say that on form. I didn't answer this question and DVLA rejected my application.
7. Send it (signed for, they lost my first application!) with cheque for registration + tax, dating certificate original (keep copy), recent utility bill, copy of drivers license, MOT certificate.
You should hear back in about a week all being well.
Sounds complicated but it needn't be. MOT > NOVA > DATE CERTIFICATE > DVLA.
Hope this helps. PM me or reply here if you want to see any examples of my forms.