Right basically I am looking to sell my car pretty soon. It's currently SORN with expired MOT but I plan to sell it with new T&T to obviously be more appealing to a buyer.

Once i get it MOT'd, I want to get it taxed.. problem is the car is not currently insured. I did have a policy on the car, but I switched it over to a different car. That policy is still in place and doesn't expire till April.

I know when you go to Tax your car in the post office, they ask to see proof of insurance, valid MOT and the V5. I was wondering if they check the insurance on a police / DVLA database when I get it taxed, or whether they literally just go on the hard copy of insurance documents?

Reason is, I still have the original insurance documents sent when I opened my policy on my Polo (which are in effect, no longer valid). I was hoping to show them those to get tax, but if they end up checking it against any database then they will find out the car isn't actually insured.

I know it would kind of be cheating the system a bit and I know it's kind of immoral. I just don't see the point in insuring the car in order to get tax, and then cancelling the policy once it is sold and wasting £30 on a cancellation charge. Plus I literally don't have the funds to buy insurance, even if I will get most of it back upon cancellation.

I'm not going to break the law, and I don't plan to drive it uninsured as I know I will still get caught by ANPR. Just cheating the system a little, which is a kind of stupid system anyway.

Thanks in advance

Pretty sure when i did this they just went on the hard copy infront of them, although mine was dated about 2 days before!

Pretty sure when i did this they just went on the hard copy infront of them, although mine was dated about 2 days before!

Cool man, this is what I'm hoping *fingers crossed*

I had a similar problem with this when i bought my lupo as the lass i got it off hadnt used it for two years and it wasnt taxed

What she did was take out a 24 hour insurance policy and then print the certificate and take it to the post office

Cost her about £30 if i remember rightly

I'm heading off to the P.O imminently and will try to see whether they check anything.

No she didn't check anything at my local. She glanced at MOT and insurance for about half a second and that was it. The only part computerised was scanning the barcode on the renewal form. But now I think about it, that could have looked it up on the database, but I don't see why they would bother checking the paper if so.

nice one chaps, thanks Ray.. as it turns out now I've just sold my other car so I will be insuring the polo now anyways!