UPDATE I called the DWP PIP helpline this morning. They will not issue a ‘Certificate of Entitlement’ for VED exemption as we already have exemption on the Motability car, and you can only have it on one car. I explained that we would not end the Motability contract until the same day that we take delivery of the new (private) car, so how are we supposed to get the certificate in time? They couldn’t help on that one. I then tried to call DVLA to ask them, but it said that the minimum wait time was 45 minutes, so I hung up. Broken Britain exemplified! I guess I have two options. Option 1. Call Motability a month or two before I take delivery and say that I will pay the VED (£50 a month) on the Motability car and hope that they do their admin, let DWP know, I can then get through to DWP to request a certificate, they agree (having hopefully been notified by Motability) and send us the certificate in time.
I happened upon this problem when I left the scheme about 3-4 years ago to ‘go private’.
Albeit my issue was with Veterans UK as opposed to DWP, in getting hold of the certificate whilst a live Motability tax exemption was in force.
The policy was apparently instigated by the government of the day who discovered that a number of disabled people where ‘double dipping’ on free disabled road tax. i.e. getting free tax with a Motability vehicle and also taxing a private vehicle as ‘Disabled’ using the certificate concurrently.
Apparently the DVSA’s creaking 1970’s computer architecture had difficulty identifying where this was occurring. Hence, they stopped the DWP and Veterans-UK sending out certificates if there was a live Motability vehicle tax exemption in force.
I had to take your first option and privately tax my old Motability vehicle before it went back. To be fair, the Motability part was quite quick in changing the tax at their end (a few days only). The delay was at the DVSA end in getting them to confirm to Veterans UK that the tax change had happened (a manual process 3 years ago, probably the same nowadays). Only then would Veterans_UK send out the certificate.
Overall, it took about four weeks, so it may only cost you one month’s road tax on the Motability vehicle.
A pain yes, as ideally it should be a joined up and seamless process. Unfortunately it isn’t as DVSA’s systems don’t communicate directly with Veterans_UK/DWP/Scottish Social Security.
At least it only has to be done once.
I recall the odd thing was my shiny new free AA membership card arrived about three days before the actual disabled tax certificate did!