Personalised Number Plates – “A nice little earner”

Last week I was driving on the M6, when a black Bentley swept by majestically and I noticed its rear number plate, T123.  I said to myself “nice car, but those number plates must have cost a packet.”.

As I drove along, I started thinking about personalised number plates and the first time I’d ever seen one of these unique vehicle registrations.  My mind was cast back to the time when I was a student in the 1970s, visiting my wife’s uncle.  Parking my battered old rusty Mini in his road haulage company’s yard next to his gleaming Triumph Stag, I noticed that the car’s registration plates were the same as his initials. When I mentioned this to him, he told me that “personalised number plates, going to be a big thing in the future”, before leading me down his yard to an old barn. In the building I was surprised to see a collection of old motor bikes and cars. All of them had pre-1960 registration plates.  He had being buying them from auctions, initially just for the plates, but he had started storing some of them away, because he knew that in twenty years time they would become classics, and he thought he saw another business opportunity.

I then remembered an episode of the classic 1980s ITV series Minder, starring the late George Cole as the wide-boy businessman Arthur Daley. In one scene, he was trying to sell a clapped-out Morris Minor to a punter, and his unique selling point was that it would be worth buying just for the plates alone.  A throw away line by the script writer, but what an insight into the world of the second hand car business, and the blossoming vehicle registration plate trade that was just coming into its own.

When I got home, I did a quick search for personalised number plates on Google, and it showed that this is now big business. The AutoTrader site, claim they have 30 million plates on their books, and they are not the only company trading plates. Using AutoTrader’s site, you can currently buy the registration plate T3 for £187,500 (reduced from £250,000) – well, we are in the middle of a recession. From my brief research, it seems like the plates that fetch the highest prices are either those that have just a small amount of letters and numbers that can be used for initials, or those that spell out words, such as H0T 5H0T, which is a plate that’s no doubt destined for someone’s Ferrari or Porsche.

It is not only private companies that are making serious money from personalised plates. The DVLA Annual Report and Accounts for 2009-2010 show that the DVLA has raised a staggering £1.47bn over the last twenty years for HM Treasury, through the sale of over three million personalised registrations and cherished transfers.

Last year alone, HM Treasury raised £67m from the sales of personalised plates, as shown in this BBC article.  The DVLA have now simplified the process of buying personalised plates, allowing interested parties to purchase them through a number of options, including telephone and online purchasing as well as absent bidding. In addition to this, the DVLA holds traditional bidding auctions every year, where members of the public and companies can go head to head for the most popular plates. This is all good business for HM Treasury, because even if you do not buy the plates directly from the DVLA, they still get £80 for every personalised number plate registration, and every time you transfer it as a cherished number plate when you buy a new car.

One of the best places to buy the more interesting personalised plates is at these DVLA auctions. You can find the dates and locations of these on their website. Click on the links to the auction to see all the plates that are up for sale at the event, You’ll find the more popular and desirable plates are sold in this manner. Obviously you’ll have to go through the cut and thrust of the auction environment, but if you’re in a mind to buy then this can make a fun day out for you and your partner. There’s something incredibly exciting about taking part in any auction, which can give you a rush that’s apparently comparable with a good hand of poker.

If you’re thinking of investing in personalised plates, and you don’t want to go down the route of bidding at an auction, then it’s always advisable to buy from a dealer who is a member of the Cherished Numbers Dealers Association (CDNA), which is the main governing body of this industry. This protects you in the unlikely event of something going seriously wrong with your purchase, in which case the association are able to provide you with an arbitration service. It’s also a very good idea to check the terms and conditions of a sale for any hidden extras before you go ahead with a purchase. A final point to note is that often when buying personalised plates, you don’t actually receive a physical number plate, so you’ll have to have this made up to actually put on your vehicle.

In order to receive your plate you’ll have to supply certain pieces of information to a dealer. These include your vehicle registration documents or log book, your MOT and a copy of your current tax disc, as the personalised plate will have to be transferred to a vehicle. If you’re not going the dealer route and are looking to buy from a private seller, then you may well want to enlist the help of a solicitor to make sure that all documentation is above board, and to get a contract of sale drawn up. This is extremely advisable in situations where you’re looking to spend a large amount of money on a personalised plate through a private deal. Always protect yourself and remember that even a gentleman’s word is worth nothing unless it’s in writing.

The internet is a good place to get an idea of what kind of plates are popular with the buying public. Certain combinations of letters such as K155 and M155 seem to have set selling prices at the low end of the market, but others such as RUD3  can command quite a large number. If you’re thinking of getting into this business as a field of potential investment, then it’s extremely useful to visit as many sites as you can in order to get a feel for the values of different kinds of personalised plates.

Drive around the road today and you may see many average looking cars with rather expensive looking plates. This is because people tend to buy luxury items, such as personalised vehicle registrations, during so called boom times. Therefore, if you’re looking to invest in plates, we’d strongly suggest that you do so now, whilst the market is low and demand is down. With careful research and an eye for a good deal at auction, you can grab some interesting plates at auction, which can make a great investment for the future.

As Arthur Daley would say – “a nice little earner!”.