ejennner

New Member
A friend of mine has a Defender 110 County Station Wagon

It has 12 seats with 12 seat-belts and was sold like this from the factory. He bought it new so he knows. It also has rear windows all down each side so certainly does not fit the normal description of a van.

The 'man' has decided that this vehicle should be classified as a commercial vehicle and as a result this Land Rover will be subject to the harmful effects of the Low Emissions Zone which is being setup in the London area.

This guy isn't looking to do anything dodgy which would result in any evasion of tax or anything like that. He is retired. It just so happens that around 10 years ago he decided that the car he wanted to buy was going to be a Land Rover Defender. He didn't buy it as a tax dodge or as a passenger vehicle for commercial use or anything like that.

So have any other forum members had this problem or does anyone know if anything can be done about it? He is going through all the regular lines of inquiry already but the benefit of forums is that they can save a lot of time and help people who sometimes are unable to find the answer anywhere else.

Needless to say, he isn't try to pull the wool. Even his insurance company classify his vehicle as a car.
 
You need to have 'estate' written on your V5 to be exempt, but even then you may not be exempt as you may be classed as a mini-bus...as far as i understand it.
 
I did wonder what action other people are taking? There must be more than one London resident on this board who owns a similar Land Rover?

Because this does not affect me directly I have not actually looked into it myself but it seems to be the case that anyone who is affected by this is planning to scrap their vehicle!

You can't really do that when you're not operating a business and not using the vehicle for commercial purposes.

It is hitting businesses hard this legislation (which is coming from the EU I might add) but for someone who isn't even using the vehicle for income the pain is even more difficult to deal with. He bought it because that's the car he wanted and he has had it and carefully maintained it from new so he can enjoy owning it for a long time.
 
Dont blame the eu. This has been british politics in a nutshell, agreed to do this when they bid for the olympics and didnt think it through.

Some people are changing to petrol engines...your friend could take some seats out so its an estate not a mini-bus..
 
Dont blame the eu. This has been british politics in a nutshell, agreed to do this when they bid for the olympics and didnt think it through.

Some people are changing to petrol engines...your friend could take some seats out so its an estate not a mini-bus..

yu mean increase the emissions - so it can enter a low emissions zone :rolleyes:
 
my 1995 vw caravelle which is one of our family vehicles was registered as a minibus on the v5. this meant i was going to have to pay the lez charge. i had to write to dvla and get them to `add` the number 7 to the log book, as it was a 7 seater.
this should now mean i won`t get clobbered as its only minibuses with 9 seats or more, private or commercial as i understand it.
ejenner, unfortunately, i think your friends lr has too many seats, and just removing them wont solve his problem. dvla said to me that you can get a vehicles classification changed, but you would need to get it looked at by vosa.
 
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If he removes 4 seats and the seatbelt fittings and sends v5 off he can keep it registered as an 8 seater estate rather than the 12 it is now. This should stop it being charged as a minibus, and is legal!

He may however pay more in insurance as for some odd reason mini-buses are often cheaper to insure than cars..he is however as i understand it, not 17-25 so should be a minimal increase if any at all.
 
If he removes 4 seats and the seatbelt fittings and sends v5 off he can keep it registered as an 8 seater estate rather than the 12 it is now. This should stop it being charged as a minibus, and is legal!

when i spoke to the nice lady at dvla about altering the v5 so that it said 7 seats instead of just minibus. she said she would only do it if thats how it was originally registered when it left the factory. luckily for me, mine did.
had it not, she said that i would have to contact vosa to get it reclassified and they would need to inspect it.
being a minibus in itself will not incur a charge with lez.
its to do with the seating capacity.
 
Dont blame the eu. This has been british politics in a nutshell, agreed to do this when they bid for the olympics and didnt think it through.
That's not what Wikipedia says. Low-emission zone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - not what I thought either. I had thought, as I wrote... that it was an EU thing. I still think it is.

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On another note. Thanks for the advice regarding the number of seats. That is interesting and should make a difference. Thanks.
 

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