All drivers who own personalised registration numbers are being urged that they may lose the right to use them should they fail to ensure that all their paperwork is bang up-to-date by the end of 2019. Millions of drivers throughout the country own personalised registration numbers, however a large number of these have them on retention – ie: they don’t have them assigned to any vehicle. Indeed with some registrations being valued as much as £500,000, they are being seen by many as an investment and it is certainly true that they have generally been increasing in value as demand increases. Nevertheless DVLA changes could result in some motorists losing the right to their investments.
If you have a private plate on retention, you need to renew the certificate of entitlement each ten years and this can be done for free. If you fail to do this in time you can currently buy back your right to use the registration from the DVLA if you obtained the relevant V778 or V750 certificate prior to March 9th 2015 and it expired later than May 1st 2011. However from 18th December 2019, the DVLA will no longer accept applications for renewal of any expired retention certificates, therefore if you fail to renew before then you will lose your right to use the registration number. Indeed the DVLA has made it clear that any entitlement lapse after 18th December 2019 will result in the registration not being reassigned to either the previous keeper or anyone else and it will simply disappear.