Transfer of car ownership with expired or unpaid tax: can it be done?

Yes it can sell a vehicle with expired tax, or worse with one or more unpaid stamp duty? And is the buyer at risk? The stampone of the taxes that many Italians have never metabolised, is one tax related to ownership of the car, motorbike or any registered vehicle. It is not tied to the circulation of the vehicle, so it must also be paid for a car that has been in the garage for many years. And when you resign yourself to the idea of ​​finding a new owner so as not to see it stop gathering dust anymore, it is legitimate to have the doubtwho perhaps shows up at the last moment: “Have I paid all the taxes? And if I forgot some, could I be denied the transfer of ownership?”. Clearly the question and questions can be reversed. “If the previous owner forgot some stamp duty, then it will be my turn to pay them?”, more than one will have asked. Let’s immediately see how the issue of transferring ownership of a car with one or more expired tax works works.

who has to pay the tax

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The answer It’s in the definition itself of car taxwhich as we have already said is a tax linked to possession of the car. The person who had (or has) possession of the vehicle on the expiry date of the tax must therefore pay it, in other words falls on the owner at the time of expiration. From this it follows that whoever was the owner of the vehicle until the signature on the deed of sale is required to pay the stamp duty (or stamps, if there are more than one unpaid ones), whereas the date on which the buyer requests the transcription of the deed to the Pra, the Public vehicle registration. It is the same if you give the car away in exchange to a dealership or a dealer, the responsibility for paying road tax passes from one owner to the other at the time of signature on the bill of sale.

transfer with expired tax

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And now we come to the answers to the questions we opened with. Can ownership of a car or vehicle be transferred if one or more tax bills have expired? Does the buyer risk having to make up for the previous owner’s negligence? The answer to the first doubt is yes, you can transfer ownership of a car that has one or more unpaid or expired tax bills. The law does not prohibit or prevent the sale of a two-, four- or more-wheeled vehicle if there is an unpaid tax bill. After all, you can even travel by car, if you are stopped at a checkpoint the officers do not have to check the payment of the tax and consequently do not even impose fines. The buyer, by changing perspective, he risks nothing, he does not have to take on any debts of the previous owner: the debt, in this case one or more unpaid taxes, does not “travel” with the car. And if, due to the mistake of those in charge of collection, they arrive,… please or worse than tax bills for unpaid stamp duty relating to periods in which you were not yet the owner of the vehicle, you must report the error to the competent authorities so that the reports reach the owner of that period.