7 “surprises” that will prevent you from registering a car after purchase

Good afternoon, dear reader.

In 2021, the owner of the car must register it (register with the traffic police) within 10 days from the date of purchase. That is, you can drive a car without registration for 10 days and this will not entail any consequences.

However, in practice, you can meet drivers who do not have time to visit the traffic police department in the allotted time. There may be different explanations for this. Some people deliberately delay registration, others have problems passing the technical inspection. Finally, the driver may not have time to register the car due to long queues at the traffic police.

This article will discuss the fines that can be imposed for violating the terms of car registration:

• Fine for driving a car.
• Fine for violating registration deadlines.
• Statute of limitations for fines for late registration.

What does it mean to “register a car”

What is this. Each car has individual tags by which it can be recognized by a traffic police officer, a diagnostic center and a camera. Such labels by law include:

• individual body, chassis or frame number (VIN) - a stamp that is placed at the factory;
• registration certificate, or PTS - prepared by the manufacturer, it comes complete with the car;
• state registration plates, or numbers. They are issued at the registration department of the traffic police;
• registration certificate (CTC) - issued by the traffic police.

When a traffic police officer registers a car, he enters all this data into a special database - the register of vehicles. And the driver is given STS, numbers and supplements the PTS.

Deadline for vehicle registration. The driver has 10 days from purchasing the car to register it. The date of purchase is indicated in the purchase and sale agreement. It doesn’t matter whether the car was purchased at a showroom or secondhand.

How much does it cost to register a car? If the car is new, the traffic police issues signs, STS and makes an entry in the PTS. For all this, the driver pays a state fee:

If you register a used car, then registration marks are not needed - they will be passed on to you from the previous owner. All that remains is to pay only 850 rubles for the issuance of a new STS and changes to the PTS.

Why is registration needed? If a driver in a new car without registration breaks the rules, for example, drives drunk, hits a pedestrian and flees the scene of the accident, it will be difficult to hold him accountable. Traffic cameras read the number plate, but it won’t be on such a car.

How to defer registration. The law does not provide for this.

How to check if a car is registered. Go to the verification page on the traffic police website and enter the VIN of the car in the field at the top of the page. This number can be found in the STS or PTS of the car.

The driver prepares such a package of documents when registering the car

What are the legal reasons for refusal of registration in 2021?

All acceptable reasons for rejecting a car owner’s application to register a car are currently spelled out in 2 main legal acts.

1. The Federal Registration Law contains a complete list of reasons for refusing to register a car.
2. Government Decree No. 1764 specifies in more detail the rules by which cars are registered in Russia.

This is an almost exhaustive list of laws for 2021, according to which traffic police officers are allowed not to accept a car or motorcycle for registration. However, today there is a significant misunderstanding among motorists of the validity and legality of such refusals. In many ways, this practice has developed because registration departments of the traffic police often refuse applications for not entirely legal reasons.

Let's now look at all the possible reasons.

Fine for late registration of a car

For individuals. If a citizen does not register the car within the prescribed period, he will receive a fine for overdue registration of the car - from 1,500 to 2,000 rubles.

For this fine, it does not matter whether the owner drove the car or not. Usually a fine is imposed at the traffic police department when the owner comes to register the car late.

For legal entities. For organizations, such as taxi services, the fine is higher - from 5,000 to 10,000 rubles.

Corrosion has eaten

With the purchase of used cars, such difficulties with signs will not arise. After all, the car is already sold with them.

Everything remains the same here. The new owner must register the car with the traffic police within 10 days. He can retain his old characters, no matter what area code they are. Might get new ones. But then he will be assigned a number with the code of the region in which he himself is registered.

But when purchasing cars on the secondary market, other problems may arise. The VIN may not be readable. For example, it has rusted from time and adversity. Or the car was involved in an accident and the part on which it was applied was damaged.

This used to be a real problem. The new registration law solved it. They established the obligation to apply additional markings to the vehicle in cases where it is impossible to identify it.

In this situation, the inspector, when inspecting the car, establishes the fact that the identification number has been destroyed. The car is sent for examination. Experts establish the original VIN and send the car back to the traffic police along with the documents. The head of the unit makes a decision on applying additional markings. This is the same VIN that was installed.

After which the owner needs to apply this marking. It can be applied either by the manufacturer or by a testing laboratory. How this is done for cars produced in single copies - homemade ones. After the additional markings have been applied, the car must be taken back to the traffic police to register it and make all changes to the documents.

The same procedure for applying additional markings also applies if the original VIN was destroyed as a result of the actions of third parties. Simply put, the car was stolen, prepared for resale, the identification number was destroyed or a new one was applied. But then the car thieves were caught, and the car was returned to the owner.

In the future, inspectors will use additional markings to identify the vehicle.

Fine for driving an unregistered car

For the driver. If a driver goes on the road in a car without registration, he will receive a fine of 500 to 800 rubles.

This is possible if an inspector stops him, checks the car’s registration and finds out that it is not there. The police officer will issue a protocol to the violator and, based on it, a fine.

For a repeated violation, the punishment is stricter - from 5,000 rubles to deprivation of rights for 3 months.

For the owner. According to the law, a fine is issued to the driver - that is, to the one who was driving at the time of the violation. If it is the owner of the car, he will pay the fine.

I was refused illegally - can I appeal and how?

You have the right to appeal an illegal refusal for a reason that is not justified by law in court at the place where the violation was committed by the MREO inspector - that is, at the address of the registration department. The claim is filed in the district court (not in the world court).

However, for the validity of the appeal, the refusal must be provided to you in writing. Mandatory written form is required by paragraph 6 of Article 20 of the Federal Law.

As a result of the challenge, the judge will make a decision either to force the registration actions due to the illegality of the traffic police refusal, or will simply leave the complaint unsatisfied if he recognizes the actions of the employees as legal.

When can you drive without registering your car with the traffic police?

10 days from the date of purchase. As long as this period has not passed since the date of purchase, there will be no fine. See the purchase and sale agreement for the date of purchase.

During the validity period of transit numbers. Transit numbers are temporary. They are assigned to cars to be driven from one region to another or abroad. Such numbers are valid for up to 30 days.

Along with transit signs, the traffic police issues the vehicle owner with a note indicating that the car has been deregistered.

The yellow color of the region cell means that the numbers are transit

Nuances

There are situations when car sales transactions are delayed due to government restrictions. Restrictions can be established by customs, investigative, judicial, social security, and traffic police authorities. If this happens, the new owner will not be able to register the car until the restriction is lifted. The data should be verified by both the owner and the prospective buyer. It is the latter who in this case faces risks, since the sold car can be returned back.

How to pay a fine for violating registration deadlines

By resolution number. If you have a resolution on a fine, you can find the fine by the number of this resolution, for example, on the State Services website. But it’s easier to enter the license plate number of the car, STS and license on the “Staff Traffic Police Fines”.

Fill out the verification form. For verification and payment you will need your STS number and license. These are 10 numbers that are located on the front or back of documents. Also leave your email so you don't miss notifications about new fines.

Check the driver's details and enter the card details. If there is a fine for late car registration, the system will notify you about it. Check that all the data is yours and click “Pay”.

Next, click “Proceed to Payment”.

Enter your bank card details and click “Pay”.

After payment, a confirmation window will appear - this means that the money has gone to the address. If you need a receipt, go to the “Payment Receipts” section.

Is it possible to pay with a discount? The fine for violating the registration rules can be paid with a 50% discount if done within the first 20 days from the date of the decision. This means that instead of 2000 you can pay only 1000 rubles.

The discount does not apply to a fine for driving a car without registration.

When and why a car is deregistered

The car must be deregistered if the owner decides to sell it, donate it or give it away, according to a court decision. A vehicle that is deregistered must be checked against the database, which indicates whether there are violations of the law or not. If the laws are not followed, then the problematic car will not be deregistered until the owner resolves all the issues. Car owners should remember that a car can be deregistered only at the place of registration. To withdraw, you will need to submit a certain package of documents:

1. A copy of the receipt, which indicates that the driver paid the transport fee correctly.
2. Technical passport of the car.
3. Numbers.

If the driver does not have the opportunity to deregister the car at the place of its registration, then this can be done in any other place, but you will have to pay extra for this. As soon as, when checking the registration of a car, it turns out that there are no fines on it, you will need to pay a transport fee, conduct an assessment by a criminologist and draw up a report on all the results of the technical inspection. The owner of the car submits an application to deregister the car.

Remember

1. Registering a car means leaving information about the car and its owner in the vehicle register. Based on data from this database, the traffic police issues fines, diagnostic centers conduct technical inspections, and insurance centers issue insurance policies.
2. The car must be registered within the first 10 days after purchase, with transit numbers - within the first 30 days.
3. If you are late, there will be a fine for an unregistered car - up to 2,000 rubles for individuals and up to 10,000 rubles for legal entities.
4. If a driver drives a car without registration onto the road, the inspector may additionally fine him up to 800 rubles.
5. To pay the fine for late registration, enter the license plate number, STS and license numbers in the verification form on the main “Traffic Police Fines” page.

All articles by the author: Evgeniy Lesnov

Car with foreign license plates: to buy or not

How to register?

In the case of foreign license plates, there are two situations: the car was purchased in another country, but from a person with Russian citizenship, or the owner is a foreign company or a citizen permanently residing there. In the first case, the buyer is obliged to register the car within 10 days; such regulations were established by the Federal Law “On State Registration of Vehicles” that came into force at the beginning of 2021. The second way is more attractive for drivers. But such license plates are legal if the vehicle is in “international traffic,” that is, it belongs to a foreigner who does not have a permanent place of residence in Russia, notes Tatyana Matsukova, lawyer at Genesis Law Firm. You can use such a machine longer, but not indefinitely. Once this period was six months, now it has been increased to a year. That is, during this time you need to register the car or go to the country where the car is “registered” and reset it to zero.

Pros of purchasing

There are not many advantages of such an acquisition, and the main one is a certain impunity for drivers. Speeding or double speeding are not a problem for drivers with foreign license plates, but not always. The fact is that information about cars registered on the territory of the Russian Federation is entered into the state register of vehicles. That is, if the numbers are not in the register, then the camera records the violation, but due to the lack of information about the owner, the violator will not receive a receipt for paying the fine, explains Matsukova.

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Lawyer AK Borodin and Partners Borodin and Partners Regional rating. Olga Rogacheva notes that we are only talking about photo-video recording systems for violations, that is, stationary cameras. If a traffic police officer stops a car, he can draw up a report on an administrative violation. But it is unlikely that it will be possible to control whether the offender will pay the fine.

To do this, you need either a nationwide database of cars with foreign license plates. The car crosses the border, which means that the Federal Customs Service has all the information about the vehicle and who is driving it, but customs officers do not transmit this data to the traffic police. And this would help create a general register of owners of unregistered cars and, knowing where they are registered, send fines. But there is no such interdepartmental exchange; the creation of a database is still being discussed.

There is a second way: a State Traffic Inspectorate employee can find out who the car is registered to by sending a request to his foreign colleagues. For this purpose, an agreement on legal assistance was signed between the CIS countries, including the “Convention on the Mutual Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions in Cases of Administrative Violations of Traffic Rules.” According to Rogacheva, although it is technically possible to determine the owner, the tool cannot be called “working” - the request will take too much time.

Ways to solve the problem:

1) establish a database of foreign license plates so that they can be recognized;

2) present all unpaid fines at the border when such cars try to leave or enter.

Olga Rogacheva, lawyer at AK Borodin and Partners Borodin and Partners Regional rating.

This is not the first year that people have been trying to solve the problem of impunity for owners of cars with foreign state marks. The government instructed the Ministry of Internal Affairs to develop a “road map” with specific proposals back in November 2021. This year, the department once again revised the plan (see the Ministry of Internal Affairs has prepared a new system of punishments for foreign traffic violators), the new system of punishments has not yet been approved.

They also tried to approach the situation from the other side: impose fines when a car tries to cross the border (and this must be done every year). But in the end, the Ministry of Transport proposed strengthening control only over buses and trucks, Kommersant writes.

What does the buyer risk?

1

You don't become an owner

The main difficulty, says Yaroslav Samorodov, senior partner at AB Yablokov and partners Yablokov and partners Regional Rating. , is that the parties do not enter into a purchase and sale agreement. The driver is given a power of attorney, and the car itself remains the property of the foreigner. That is, legally the car is transferred for temporary use, and not ownership. And therefore there are no guarantees that the car will be in your hands “forever”.

The owner can revoke the power of attorney at any time. If you get behind the wheel with a revoked power of attorney (provided you know about it), then it will be theft. Therefore, the scheme is associated with the risk of a criminal record, which is hardly worth the known “benefits”.

Yaroslav Samorodov, senior partner AB Yablokov and partners Yablokov and partners Regional rating.

2

Fine

With a power of attorney, you can use a car quite legally, says Stanislav Solntsev, managing partner of Solntsev Law Firm and Partners Solntsev and Partners Regional Rating. group Bankruptcy (including disputes) group Intellectual property (including disputes) group Dispute resolution in courts of general jurisdiction 27-31st place By number of lawyers. The main condition is to travel outside the country annually in order to “reset the counter” of temporary importation. If you miss the deadline, you will have to pay customs duty. For residents of border areas, traveling outside the country is not a problem, but the pandemic situation and temporary border closures have made life difficult for such drivers. And if you don’t go abroad in a “foreign” car on time, then its buyer risks receiving a fine of 1,500 to 2,500 rubles. and most importantly, lose your car, as it will be confiscated.

3

Limitations on "nominal" ownership

The nominal owner has the opportunity to report the car theft, if this happens, there are no special features when registering an accident, says Samorodov. But the driver will not be able to dispose of the car as a full owner. Problems will arise if you lose your registration plate or documents. They can only be restored where the car is registered. The conditional owner will not be able to sell the property - it will be an insignificant transaction. The resale of such cars, Samorodov explains, legally constitutes a transfer of trust to another person if the owner initially authorized it. This leads to another risk: nothing prevents the official owner from issuing several such powers of attorney, that is, in fact, conducting a “double transaction.” In this case, it is impossible to prove your good faith - the money was transferred on the basis of an oral agreement, without concluding an agreement.

4

Problems with law

The car may be stolen, notes Alena Zelenovskaya, head of the criminal and administrative law practice of the National Legal Service AMULEX National Legal Service AMULEX Federal rating. . You can check a car that is registered with a Russian using the traffic police database. But it is impossible to find out whether there are encumbrances on a foreign car with registration marks of another state. It's like buying a pig in a poke. After some time, you can learn from traffic police officers that the car has long been wanted in the Interpol database and the car will be confiscated. The same situation applies if the documents turn out to be fake. Moreover, in this case the money cannot be returned. In such a situation, the purchase and sale agreement can be terminated and you can go to court with a demand to transfer the entire amount back, but if there is no agreement, then there is no evidence that the money was transferred to someone.

5

Bankrupt owner

If the owner of the car has debts, the bailiffs can find the car and seize it (if the vehicle is registered to a foreign company). The situation is the same if an individual begins to have financial problems, for example, he decides to go bankrupt. The court will appoint a special bankruptcy trustee responsible for the entire process of selling the property. He can return the car to the bankruptcy estate. In these cases, the buyer will be left without money and without transport.

Having analyzed all the risks, Solntsev does not recommend buying a car that has not been cleared through customs. The only situation when it is worth doing this is if you have citizenship of a foreign country or a residence permit, and you are registering a car in another country for yourself or yours for the buyer

As a guarantee, sellers sometimes offer to draw up a receipt confirming receipt of money for the car. Rogacheva says that it is a document confirming the fact of the sale of the vehicle. If a car is sold by proxy, the receipt will become “insurance” for the parties.

It is more practical to pay for the services of a notary and receive a document confirming the transfer of money for the car, which will play a fundamental role in pre-trial or judicial proceedings.

Olga Rogacheva, lawyer at AK Borodin and Partners Borodin and Partners Regional rating.

When buying a car, a receipt is written in any form, but Rogacheva shares a sample that will help avoid mistakes:

What to include in the receipt:

• Full name of the owner or the person representing his interests by proxy;
• vehicle owner passport details;
• all vehicle data;
• passport details of the person who made the purchase and transferred the money;
• transferred amount in words;
• a clause on the owner’s personal liability if the vehicle is sold to another person, is under arrest, and so on;
• number and personal signature.

Solntsev warns that if a car is sold with a “ready” receipt, it may turn out to be counterfeit. It is difficult to verify that it was really certified by a notary (without knowing how everything works in another country). Therefore, such guarantees should be treated with caution, the expert concluded.

• Anastasia Sinchenkova

Through the AutoHistory service

Our online service for checking the history of vehicles in the Russian Federation, “AutoHistory,” uses information from government and commercial sources. By making a request, you will receive a report on all data relating to the vehicle:

• specifications;
• registration actions;
• restrictions;
• being on bail;
• participation in an accident;
• fines;
• customs history;
• a valid MTPL policy;
• use in taxi;
• mileage, etc.

From the report you will find out whether the car has been re-registered to the new owner. Sometimes the reason for lack of registration is restrictions imposed by bailiffs. In this case, the buyer will not be able to become the official owner of the property.

Why is it worth buying a report through the AutoHistory service:

1. You don’t have to leave home, stand in lines or communicate with government officials. To request information, you only need a computer, phone or tablet with Internet access.
2. The report takes several minutes to generate, during which the system processes a huge amount of information.
3. The cost of the service is only 199 rubles.
4. In one document you will receive all the information about the vehicle.
5. The service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

How to check a car using our service:

1. On the main page, enter the car's license plate number, VIN code or body number.

2. Wait until the vehicle search in the system is completed.
3. Pay for the report in a convenient way.
4. Receive the report online and by email.

You can request verification through the mobile application. This allows you to receive a report in any place where there is no access to a computer.

traffic police

If, after the sale of the vehicle, the owner still continues to receive notifications about payment of transport taxes, then most likely the new owner has not yet re-registered the vehicle in his name. But how can you check whether the new owner has registered the car?

To find out information of this kind, the seller can contact the traffic police with an application to provide information about the re-registration of the sold car. However, to do this, he will have to provide the inspectorate representative with compelling arguments regarding the need to issue the required information. It is worth understanding that the traffic police do not simply disclose such information.

Also, the driver’s arguments must be supported by evidence that the owner’s rights have been violated and in order to correct the situation he needs to obtain information about the new owner of the vehicle.

If the seller cannot come to the traffic police to obtain information regarding the re-registration of the vehicle, then he has the right to send an official request to the traffic police to clarify such data. Once the request has been reviewed, a detailed notification of the results will be sent to him.

After reviewing the application, traffic police officers will tell the would-be seller in detail information about the new owner, as well as whether that owner has begun the process of re-registering the purchased car. Sometimes they can even tell you how to act in the current situation.