The Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

This Statutory Instrument has been made partly in consequence of defects in S.I. 2015/403 and is being issued free of charge to all known recipients of that Statutory Instrument.

Statutory Instruments

2018 No. 52

Road Traffic

The Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Made

17th January 2018

Laid before Parliament

24th January 2018

Coming into force

19th February 2018

The Secretary of State, in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 22(1)(a), (d), (e), (f), (h), (i), 22(1B), 22(2), 57(1), 57(2)(a), 57(3)(b), 57(5) and 59(2)(a) of the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994(1), makes the following Regulations.

Citation and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 and come into force on 19th February 2018.

Amendment of Regulations

2.  The Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002(2) are amended as follows.

3.  For regulation 3(1A)(b) substitute—

“(b) the insurer of the vehicle has notified the Secretary of State that the vehicle is suitable for repair; and”.

4.  In regulation 14(2)(b), for “registration fee document exemption” substitute “registration document fee exemption”.

5.  In regulation 15A(7)—

(a) in sub-paragraph (a), for “the pre-accident value of the relevant vehicle is less than the cost of repairing it;” substitute “the relevant vehicle has sustained damage;”; and

(b) in sub-paragraph (c), for “the pre-accident value of the vehicle is less than the cost of repairing it.” substitute “it has sustained damage.”.

6.  In regulation 16(1A)(b), for “registration fee document exemption” substitute “registration document fee exemption”.

7.  For regulation 20(4)(a), substitute—

“(a) a vehicle has sustained structural damage and the cost of repair, or the total cost of repair and associated ancillary costs, would exceed the value of the vehicle when repaired or it has been replaced with another vehicle under a policy of insurance; and”.

8.  In Schedule 3A—

(a) for paragraph 1, substitute—

“Duty of the insurer

1.— (1) If an insurer determines that the relevant vehicle for which it provides a policy of insurance has sustained damage such that the repair costs, or the total cost of repair and associated ancillary costs, exceed the pre-accident value of that vehicle or the insurer is required to replace the damaged vehicle with another vehicle under a policy of insurance—

(a) that insurer must notify the Secretary of State whether the relevant vehicle is suitable for repair or not and, if it is suitable for repair and this notification is made on or after 20th February 2018, whether that vehicle sustained any structural damage or not; and

(b) unless that insurer is also the keeper of the relevant vehicle, the insurer must notify the keeper of that vehicle—

(i) of the reason that it has decided not to repair the vehicle;

(ii) if the vehicle is suitable for repair or not; and

(iii) if this notification is made on or after 20th February 2018, whether the vehicle sustained structural damage or not.

(2) Following notification in accordance with paragraph (1)(a), the insurer must destroy the registration document if this is in its possession, unless the vehicle is suitable for repair and has not sustained structural damage.”.

(b) in paragraph 2(1), for “less that the cost of repairing it,” substitute “either less than the cost of repairing it or the total cost of repairing it and associated ancillary costs,”.

(c) after paragraph 2(1)(a)(ii), insert—

“(iii) if the notification is made on or after 20th February 2018, the vehicle has sustained structural damage; and”.

(d) in paragraph 2(1)(b), after “the registration document for that vehicle”, insert “unless the vehicle is suitable for repair and has not sustained structural damage”.

(e) in paragraph 2(2), after “unless that document is held by the insurer”, insert “or the vehicle is suitable for repair and has not sustained structural damage”.

Signed by authority of the Secretary of State

Jesse Norman

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

Department for Transport

17th January 2018

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 (“the 2002 Regulations”) to revise certain duties and other matters related to damaged motor vehicles.

Regulation 3 – The definition of “registration document fee exemption” in the 2002 Regulations has been amended to reflect a new industry practice in the categorisation of damaged vehicles and subsequent notification to the Secretary of State about the vehicle’s condition.

Regulations 4 and 6 – These correct errors in the 2002 Regulations that were introduced by S.I. 2015/403; the registration document fee exemption was incorrectly referred to as the “registration fee document exemption”.

Regulation 5 – Schedule 3A to the 2002 Regulations has effect in relation to the issue of any new registration documents for certain categories of vehicles when any one of the conditions specified in regulation 15A(7) is satisfied. Regulation 5 amends two of these conditions to reflect a new industry practice in categorising damaged vehicles.

Regulation 7 – This amends the trigger for a duty to surrender/destroy registration documents for damaged vehicles so that it applies in a broader range of circumstances than before. It also restricts the duty’s applicability to documents relating to vehicles with structural damage.

Regulation 8 – This amends Schedule 3A so that the duties to notify the Secretary of State about a damaged vehicle and destroy documents must be carried out in a broader range of circumstances than before. The notification must also now specify whether the vehicle sustained structural damage and the related duty to notify the vehicle’s keeper has been similarly amended.

An impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen.

An Explanatory Memorandum has been prepared for these Regulations and is available alongside this instrument on the UK Legislation website www.legislation.gov.uk.

(1)

1994 c. 22. Relevant amendments to section 22(1) were made by the Finance Act 1996 (c. 8) Schedule 2, paragraph 4 and the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001 (c. 3) section 33(1). Section 22(1) was also amended by the Road Safety Act 2006 (c. 49) section 47(4) to (10), which have yet to be brought into force. Section 22(1B) was inserted by the Finance Act 1995 (c. 4) Schedule 4, paragraph 34(3) and amended by the Finance Act 1996 (c. 8) Schedule 2, paragraph 5 and Schedule 41, Part 2, paragraph 6. Section 57(1) was amended by the Finance Act 1996 (c. 8) Schedule 41, Part 2, paragraph 6. There are other amendments to sections 22 and 57 but none is relevant.

(2)

S.I. 2002/2742; relevant amending instruments are S.I. 2004/1773, S.I. 2015/403, S.I. 2015/1657.