Sold my previous Freelander last month and signed/sent log book in on 26th September. As I paid ROAD TAX on monthly direct debit and had sold the car before the end of the month I assumed I would get back Octobers DD which they took on the 1st October. Oh no they didn't!! Robbing kept it as they say that the date you sign/send the log book is not when they take it from its when they received notification and as I had posted at the end of the month it didn't reach them til the 2nd. They then cheerfully informed me that I could have notified them online on the 26th and they wouldn't have charged!!

If you are selling a car and paying road tax by direct debit be aware!! I have put the link below so no one else gets ripped off like I did.

https://www.gov.uk/sold-bought-vehicle

I don’t understand why you think it’s a rip-off. Once you sold the car you should have stopped the DD. I normally pay my road tax annually but I knew I was selling my Freelander so I did the DD thing. Car was sold within that month so I stopped the DD. I got a letter from the dvla saying bla bla car isn’t road taxed , oh yes it was & I knew the new owner had to road tax it too for the next month (October) , you only get a refund for full months . It’s kinda simple really. Do it now ! Your a long time dead !!

Because I didn't have time to stop it as it was over a weekend. Besides the DVLA says any overpayment will be repaid. I was just trying to warn people of the loophole but hey take it or leave it.

I cancelled my DD online, who goes into a bank? You only get a refund for a full month. To me thats the con, the existing owner pays for road tax & the new owner has to pay for the same month. Do it now ! Your a long time dead !!

Yeah. U didn't really get my point but dont worry about it. Was just a friendly post to make people aware you can inform sale date same day online and avoid unnecessary costs. That I thought was kinda simple really too.

Going off topic slightly, I used to work as a gardener and had work through a letting agent. One of my regulars was a couple who ran a very successful cleaning company and they found that whenever they moved out of their rental the agents withheld monies from their deposit for ‘final cleaning, carpets’ and such. Given they’d professionally cleaned before they left, they were naturally off losing this money so stopped their final rental payment so the agent had to use their initial deposit to cover, no funds left for supposedly the ‘required’ clean, jobs a good’un. Never pursued for the money.
Perhaps similar principle could be applied to the tax, cancel just before it’s physically sold if it’s near month end?

What annoys me is that they automatically send you a reminder for your tax with threats of being hung, drawn and quartered for non payment.... but you get nothing automatically for your MOT which is safety critical (yes i know you can request MOT reminders on DVLA interweb)

no tax does not make your car unsafe mechanically, MOT does.