New changes to the DVLA may result in longer waiting times for vehicle licenses. The Government has announced new plans to close 39 regional offices of the DVLA which may force fleets to have to wait longer before their vehicles can be delivered.
Fleet director of the Holdcroft Motor Group, Malcolm Pearson, stated that he is very concerned that a delay in the tax discs might cause problems for dealers and for fleets. The dealer has complete control of the tax disc process, but they have to be given permission from the leasing company in order to register any cars and this is when the disc is ordered.
Now that the regional offices are being shut down the dealer will not be able to get a tax disc on site and instead are going to have to go collect it from the closest remaining centre to them. It could be also issued from the central DVLA and mailed but Pearson remarked that this could take as long as three weeks to get the disc in the mail.
Pearson’s group has Hyundai, Honda, Volvo, Mazda, Toyota and Nissan franchises and is very concerned about how the tax discs are going to handled whether they should be sent to the customer or the dealer and who should actually be identified as the customer.
Pearson went on to explain that the leasing company does not want the responsibility because it is going to increase the cost of administering the service and it is going to cause time delays before the tax disc can actually get to the driver. Fleets do not want a vehicle to be given to them without a tax disc because this could result in a lot of problems from the doctor’s side.
