If you're in the process of selling your car, legal experts say failing to properly transfer your number plate registration could land you in hot water. A Queensland grandmother has found out the hard way.
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00:00Natalie Franz received a notice threatening to suspend her driver's licence over an unpaid
00:08fine.
00:09I didn't have anything on my car so I was a little shocked as to how I got the fine.
00:13After enquiring further, she was sent photos of the alleged offence on the Gold Coast.
00:18It wasn't her car, but it did have her old number plate that she sold on Facebook to
00:23someone in Victoria in 2021.
00:26I was like, are you joking?
00:28This can't be real.
00:29This can't be happening.
00:31Neither state authority was able to help.
00:34They basically said there's nothing that they could do about it.
00:37It was pretty much my fault for selling the plates without doing a proper handover.
00:44Motorists are responsible for letting their state transport authority know that a number
00:48plate no longer belongs to them, which can be done by lodging a transfer form requiring
00:54the signature of both parties.
00:56When you purchase, you're not purchasing a number plate itself, you're purchasing the
01:01rights to the number plate.
01:03Lawyers warn it's important to keep a record of the sale.
01:06In the fine print there, it does say that if the plates are lost or stolen, you do remain
01:10liable for any infringements that are incurred.
01:14I obviously was naive and did not understand the process of selling a set of number plates.
01:20Lawyers warn it's important to keep a record of the sale.
01:23Unable to find the buyer from three years ago, she has paid this fine and will have
01:28to pay any future ones.
01:30I have to just maybe sit and wait for another fine, feeling anxious about it every day.