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Even the bureaucrats who enforce the laws get frustrated with the reams of paper generated. In a meeting last week with a licensing officer in which I was helping our local Village Hall Committee get their premises license sorted, the officer couldn’t have agreed more with us about the idiosyncrasies of premises licenses.
After all, I could hardly blame the vicar for getting frustrated over the fact that the licence currently states the hall could have professional dancers perform under its roof, but somebody hiring it for the purposes of a wedding reception couldn’t let their guests dance at the disco...
If you don’t understand the legislation it is all going to seem odd to an outsider which is why I’ve been frustrated by another area of bureaucracy that’s just managed to bemuse me: the paperwork surrounding owning a car.
Last month, I bought a new car in order to save myself some money. The idea of buying a new car to save money might seem odd to some, but this car is much smaller than my other one and therefore cheaper to put petrol in. It’s also cheaper to tax and to insure. And, because it’s a Ford, the parts and labour costs are much lower than my Chrysler’s were.
I purchased the car at auction, a frightening 15 second process during which a man shouted madly and unintelligibly at me and then through a hammer at my head, thus saving me approximately £1,000 over the forecourt price.
Since then, I’ve spent roughly £1,100 fixing all the little faults that have cropped up. Today, it’s in the garage having something called a cambelt replaced. Apparently, that’s quite important...
None of this has much to do with paperwork, until you come to look at the registration certificate which, because I bought the car at auction, is incomplete; this is a problem as I’m planning on driving the car in to France next week.
The process of getting myself a new V5 registration document has left me quite happy to never complain about filling in Temporary Event Notices again.
I have to complete a form called a V62, which carries a fee of £25. In big, bold letters, form V62 states that the fee will NOT be payable if I have form V5C/2, which I do! So, according to form V62, in order to avoid paying the £25 fee, all I have to do is complete the form with all my new keeper details. Then I simply attach part V5C/2 and send them both in together.
Part V5C/2 states, in big bold letters, that it must NOT, under any circumstances, be returned to the DVLA...
Mark Daniels is the licensee of The Tharp Arms in Chippenham, near Newmarket.
