Aircooled VW South Africa

I finally went to register a Beetle I bought for my wife from a friend yesterday. It was not done before because he is living in UK and I needed his Id and signature etc or so I thought. The forms we completed as buyer and seller was not even asked for. I had to complete a new form as title holder as I have the papers and with car details. I then registered the car in my name without any info or signatures from a previous owner.

This is all new to me as I havent bought a car like that in more than 10 years.

My thinking is that if you don't need anything from the previous owner can't someone that get a copy of a car's papers register it in his name illegally? I take it that there is a system in place in case that happens?

Hey
I just registered a 67 Beetle recently ( the owner had already moved back to the Netherlands ) What a Mission!! Took me about a month and a half....in fact i just picked up the license disk today.
Dont know how you did it with such ease.

If you have the original registration document it is not difficult. Only the buyer's ID is required to do a change of ownership. If the original is missing
then the last owner's ID is needed with the aplication form when aplying to get a duplicate. Thats where it gets difficult.

Not sure in other places, but here in the EC, the title holder must register/ transfer it into the new owners name, with copy of new Owners ID.

The new owner then goes to the license dept. and fills in the registration details on a new form, and gets his papers after Data dot and RWC, as it will already appear behind the new owners name.

This stops the guy riding on your name for years and gives him 21 days to get the registration done.

Think its better, as I had a car on my name for ten years and could not get it off my name, so I landed up scraping it after paying the back license due.

Our new system will not let you take out a new license, if you have any other car license over due.

Herman

You only need the registration document to transfer it into your name. Only the registered owner can get a duplicate registration and they must apply in person. Strictly you have to provide a copy of seller's ID, but this is not strictly enforced, especially if you give a good reason, such as seller emigrated or can't be found.

A few years back I bought a Westfalia camper from a man who was on his death bed. He had lost the papers and the licensing dept would not issue a duplicate to anyone but him, not even his close relatives. Eventually we had to get an affidavit from his doctor saying he was bedridden before they would issue the duplicate to his son.

Herman, the process you describe is the law all over the country. You are supposed to complete the yellow change of ownership form and send it to licence dept within 21 days and they then take it off your name and the new owner has 21 days to transfer it into his name or start paying penalties. However, AFAIK, there is no issue if the seller doesn't send in yellow form; the car remains his liability until ownership transferred. Failure to submit yellow form won't prevent new owner from registering it in his name so long as he has the registration doc.