Swapping one private plate for another?

[Gary_M]

Currently I have a private plate on my Transporter and have just bought another. I want to put the plate that’s on my van on retention and transfer the new plate onto my van.
Can this be done as one process or would I first need to put my current plate in retention (£80) and have the original van plate re-assigned, wait for the new V5 and then assign my new private plate?

 

[Sackmycook]

Yes, I think that's how it works

 

[Gary_M]

Yes, I think that's how it works

I kind of expected that Guess it’ll be 2 x £30 changes with my insurance company!

 

[Vanderlust]

Just done that with my van. When you put your current plate on retention DVLA automatically assign a new age related number to your van and when you get the v5 for that number you can then change it to your new private plate. The GOV.UK website details the process if any problems. The £35 charged by my insurance company to record the new number was a bit of a ripoff.

 

[Gary_M]

Just done that with my van. When you put your current plate on retention DVLA automatically assign a new age related number to your van and when you get the v5 for that number you can then change it to your new private plate. The GOV.UK website details the process if any problems. The £35 charged by my insurance company to record the new number was a bit of a ripoff.

It’ll be £35 twice won’t it? Once for the age related or original plate and again for the new private plate, all within two weeks!!

 

[Vanderlust]

My van is securely parked off road and not a daily driver. The new V5 for the age related number arrived in 3 days. I wasn’t going to get plates made for the temporary number as I wasn’t using the van so I notified the insurance once with my new plate. If you are going to be on the road before you get the new v5 I guess it would be necessary to inform the insurance and display the interim age related reg number.

 

[Gary_M]

My van is securely parked off road and not a daily driver. The new V5 for the age related number arrived in 3 days. I wasn’t going to get plates made for the temporary number as I wasn’t using the van so I notified the insurance once with my new plate. If you are going to be on the road before you get the new v5 I guess it would be necessary to inform the insurance and display the interim age related reg number.

Thanks, we may be able to do the same in a way. We only use the van at weekend so if I put the existing plate on retention on Sunday evening then there’s a chance I could receive the V5 before the end of the week. It’s then an instant change to the new private plate and a single notification to the insurance. Our van is also secured off road on a driveway.

 

[Bav]

When you put your current plate on retention DVLA automatically assign a new age related number to your van

From what I understood, the original plate - the one assigned when the vehicle was first registered - would be reassigned were the private plate ever to be placed on retention. AFAIK, the only time a new, age-related number is assigned is if the vehicle was first registered on a private plate (i.e. there is no existing age-related plate to revert to). Was that the case for your van?

 

[Vanderlust]

Yes that’s correct. I only covered the swapping private plates. My van was 1st registered with a private plate. I changed it after a year to another private number, the original on retention. I have now changed back to the original ( long story) and got issued another age related number first although I still owned the original on the retention certificate. There didn’t seem to be any way of swapping the private numbers without getting a number in between ( either original or new).
If you got the first registered number back and you still had the plates it would save some expense if you needed to use the vehicle before the v5 for the replacement private number arrived.

 

[Paynewright]

Whatever you do dont just put your new private plate on, there is a risk you’ll lose your original private plate!!!

Current plate on retention first.

There is a thread on this where a forum member lost a plate he’d owned for years. I think he managed to get it back eventually but ‘officially’ it was lost!

 

[Gary_M]

Whatever you do dont just put your new private plate on, there is a risk you’ll lose your original private plate!!!

Current plate on retention first.

There is a thread on this where a forum member lost a plate he’d owned for years. I think he managed to get it back eventually but ‘officially’ it was lost!

Thanks, it would have always been my intention to put the current private plate on retention first. I was just hoping there could have been a logical step where during the application it asked if I wanted the original assigned plate or a new private plate. Guess not!