How to cancel traffic police fines after selling a car

What to do if the car is sold and fines arrive?

A signed contract for the sale of a vehicle does not relieve the owner of the car from liability to the traffic police and the tax office. The owner of the car is the person whose data is entered into the database of the state road safety inspection. Not all Russian citizens act within the framework of current legislation and register their car in a timely manner. By law, 10 days are allotted for this from the date of conclusion of the transaction. If the new owner violates the deadlines and does not register the car, information about any offenses, including fines, is sent to the previous owner. What to do if you receive a fine for a sold car, where to go, as well as other legal subtleties, you will learn from the article.

Why are fines for a sold car sent to the previous owner?

The requirement to re-register a car is set forth in paragraph 6 of Order No. 399 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. In accordance with this norm, any vehicle must be registered within 10 days after the transaction is concluded. Otherwise, the car seller will continue to receive notices of violations and fines. As for the new owner, he may be punished:

a fine in the amount of 3.5 thousand rubles;
deprivation of the right to drive a car for a period of up to 3 years.

In accordance with the Order, the seller has the right to independently contact the traffic police and deregister the car due to the sale. This can be done on the 11th day from the date of conclusion of the transaction.

What to do if the car has already been deregistered and fines are coming?

1 Settlement agreement with the buyer of the vehicle.

If, after completing and registering the contract, fines continue to be received in the name of the previous owner, most likely the buyer did not re-register the car in his name. Lawyers recommend doing the following - contact the buyer and ask:

re-register the car;
pay a fine.

If the telephone number of the second party to the transaction has not been saved, his contacts must be indicated in the agreement.

The peaceful way to solve the problem does not always work, so the next logical step for the seller is to contact the traffic police (the department where the vehicle was registered) and submit an application with a request to deregister the car. The required package of documents is an application, the original and a copy of the contract. Based on the information received, the applicant receives a certificate confirming the deregistration of the vehicle.

A Russian citizen has the right to appeal a decision on a violation within 10 days from the date of receipt of the decision. The document must indicate the reason for the complaint - the sale of the car. Additionally, an agreement on the purchase and sale of the car is attached.

TsAFAP has the right to withdraw or annul the decision.

The applicant is obliged to confirm the fact that the car is in the use of another person (buyer). Explanations are presented in the Resolution of the Plenum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation dated October 24, 2006. The confirmation will be the purchase and sale agreement.

The complaint is written to the head of the traffic police, the document can be taken in person, sent by mail (necessarily with notification), or use the official website of the state inspection www.gibdd.ru.

If you were unable to contact CAFAP within ten days, you will have to prepare a petition to restore the appeal period.

4 How to cancel a traffic police fine if the car is sold? - We act through the court.

If a notice of prosecution has already been received, you can appeal it through the courts. Indisputable evidence of the illegality of the decision will be:

contract;
a certificate confirming the deregistration of the vehicle.

5 Cancellation of the contract.

The agreement can be declared invalid if more than 10 days have passed since the date of its signing and the new owner has not re-registered the vehicle.

The fine should be dealt with in the following way: file a complaint with CAFAP and provide the terminated contract as confirmation that at the time of the offense the car belonged to another person. In this case, the applicant will be exempt from financial penalties.

Legal nuance

The owner of the car, being a taxpayer, pays transport tax. When the new owner fails to register the vehicle on time, the tax liability remains with the previous owner. To avoid difficulties with the tax office, after concluding the transaction, you need to contact the tax office and submit an application indicating that the car has been sold and also deregistered. The application must be accompanied by supporting documents - an agreement, a certificate.

The tax office independently makes a request to the traffic police to confirm information on a specific vehicle.

Question answer

Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation dated June 26, 2018 No. 399 “On approval of the procedure for registering vehicles.”

If a notice of a fine is received after the transaction, you cannot ignore the document without paying it. Even if the new owner re-registers the vehicle, the recovery will remain with the previous owner.

In case of non-payment of a monetary penalty, bailiffs have the right to write off the amount from a bank card without the knowledge and consent of the owner (Article 20.25 of the Administrative Code). Thus, the issue of a fine must be resolved legislatively and within the time limits established by legal documents.

Application form approved, passport, contract (original and copy provided).

Not necessary. The document is submitted at the place of registration, and the court will redirect

The car has been sold, a fine has been received - how to cancel fines for a sold car?

You, as the seller, are the owner of the car until you conclude a purchase and sale agreement and sign the car delivery and acceptance certificate (but the latter is not required). The problem here is that you will be listed as the owner in the traffic police until the buyer re-registers the car in his name. And, since you are the owner, then you will receive fines from cameras for the sold car. But is this legal?!

Fines for a sold car - what does the 2019 law say?

Let's start with what fines are for a sold car! These are essentially fines from cameras that automatically record violations. In general, regulations are never issued for a car - it cannot violate traffic rules; the driver, owner or proprietor does. But there is an article in the Administrative Code that, regardless of who was driving, gives the right to hold the owner of the vehicle accountable in cases where the violation was recorded on camera.

The second subtlety of the traffic rules (more precisely, the Civil Code) is that we have already sold the car, and therefore we are not the owner. But the traffic police thinks differently - it is from the database of the State Traffic Inspectorate that data about the owner of the car is taken on the question of where and to whom to send a “chain letter”.

And the traffic police will not find out about the change of owner until the buyer deigns to apply for re-registration of the car to the traffic police. Only after this the fines will begin to arrive where they need to go – to the new owner.

What is the problem?

The very essence of the flaw in the law, which allows for the fact that a fine comes on a sold car, consists of the buyer being able to re-register the car only within 10 days after purchase, and before that he can drive around and catch fines, which will come to you as a seller.

This is, of course, wrong. And the law in force for 2019 thinks the same.

Who legally owns the fines for a sold car?

Of course, these fines belong to the buyer. The thing is that ownership of the car is transferred not at the time the buyer registers it with the traffic police, as many mistakenly believe, but at the date and time of the conclusion of the purchase and sale agreement.

It is immediately after this date and time that the car belongs to the buyer. And fines from her too.

Article 2.6.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses states that in case of auto-fixation of violations, fines go to the owner. This means that all these fines for the sold car are “ not ours, but yours ” ©.

It’s just that since the car has not yet been registered with the traffic police by the new owner, how do they know about the existence of a purchase and sale agreement?!

If you do nothing and forget about the fine

No, in this case it will not be automatically transferred to the buyer immediately after he re-registers the car to himself. Unfortunately, as of 2019, the traffic police does not have such a practice at all.

Important note!

This article provides basic information, but each case is different.
In 92% of all situations there are important nuances that can affect the outcome of the entire case.
An experienced lawyer will study all the materials of the case and indicate in which direction to move.

Therefore, our website employs on-duty legal consultants who delve into each case and are aimed at solving it.

or consult toll-free: 8 (499) 938-43-58 (Moscow), 8 (812) 425-13-31 (St. Petersburg), 8 (800) 350-14-83 (all of Russia).

Terminate vehicle registration

No, this will not transfer the penalty to the buyer in cases where the car is sold. But by doing this you will solve the root of the problem - inform the traffic police that the new owner of the car is now a different person. And from now on, fines for the sold car will come to him or her.

By the way, car enthusiasts often call this process “deregistration.” This is not true. For 2019, a car can be deregistered only in 3 cases:

during disposal,
upon loss,
when exported abroad.

The car remains registered with the traffic police. The owner just changed. This means that we need to perform a registration action - stop registering the car for ourselves. This can only be done on the 11th day after the date in the contract, since according to the law, within 10 days after the purchase, the new owner still has the right to drive without registering in his name.

To do this, you need to contact the traffic police (any, not necessarily at your registration address) and you will need the following documents:

a sales contract signed by both parties to the transaction and confirming that the car for which the fine was received has been sold,
passport,
application for termination of registration.

How to remove a fine on a sold car?

To do this, we will have to appeal the fine. And in fact, everything is very simple here! We just need to remove the fine for the sold car from ourselves and make sure that it is assigned to the legal owner of this fine - the buyer.

Important condition: you can remove the fine from yourself and transfer it to the buyer only within 10 days after receiving a copy of the decision on the violation. Missing this deadline deprives you of the right to appeal. Only in rare cases can this period be restored upon request and for valid reasons.

So, let's look at step-by-step instructions on how to remove the sanction from yourself.

Cancellation of a fine if the car is sold - instructions

As we mentioned above, we need to appeal such a fine. The maximum distance you will need to travel for this is to the nearest post office (but if you wish, you can also go to the traffic police or the district court office).

To appeal you will need the following:

a copy of the purchase and sale agreement to confirm that the car was sold and the fine was issued to you illegally (a copy with the original signatures of the parties is highly desirable, but in the absence of one, you can send a copy),
an envelope, a form for listing the attachments (issued by mail), if you will appeal by mail,
a copy of the decision that came to you by mail.

The address of the traffic police department where the complaint is being filed is written on the back of the copy of the resolution with the fine that was sent to you by mail.

Next, the completed complaint must be placed in an envelope and sent by registered mail with a list of attachments by mail. Receipt of delivery is not required. The date of filing the complaint will be considered to be the date the letter is sent, and not when it reaches the addressee, so do not worry about missing the 10-day appeal period.

Based on the results of consideration of the complaint, you will receive a decision to cancel by mail.

If the purchase and sale agreement is lost

In this case, it will not be possible to appeal the decision based on changes in the owner’s data. And there is a way out, but it is illegal. You can deregister a car on the basis of its loss (just not disposal, since in this case a certificate of disposal will be required in 2019).

This is illegal because the car is not actually lost - its owner has simply changed. And you will cause problems with registration for the new owner. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you contact the buyer before such an action and urgently demand that the car be re-registered in your name so that you do not receive fines for it.

If the buyer refuses to do this or does not get in touch, and fines for the car you sold nevertheless continue to arrive, then you can remove the car upon loss at any department of the MREO traffic police with the appropriate application (form above, you just need to highlight the corresponding reason) .

Transport tax

It also happens that the buyer asks you not to stop registering the car, motivating him with something, saying that he will drive carefully and you will not receive fines. And you agree.

Indeed, there are no shortcomings in such a scheme. But there is one “but” - you are also listed as the owner in the Tax Inspectorate, and the transport tax is charged to you.

To stop this “counter”, it is enough to also stop registering the sold car with the traffic police - they automatically send the information to the inspectorate.

A common problem is fines after selling a car.

A person who buys a used car must register the car. If, when selling, the car’s license plates remain the same, you should simply go to the traffic police and add changes to the database (in other words, re-register the car). The new owner must complete this simple operation 10 days from the date the purchase and sale agreement was drawn up.

Unfortunately, many buyers often ignore this rule or are not aware of it at all. Therefore, if the new owner of the purchased car gets into an accident or violates traffic rules, the fine will come to the name of the old owner of the car. In addition, he will also be fined for failing to re-register the vehicle within 10 days after purchase. In such a situation, it will have to be paid by the previous owner of the car.

What fines will you have to pay?

Of course, there are fines that are paid on the spot. The new owner caught in such a violation will have to do it himself. But otherwise, fines after selling a car are no different from fines that must be paid while owning the vehicle. For example, if the new owner, without registering, exceeded the speed by 20 km/h, the old owner will receive a fine of 500 rubles. If the speed is exceeded by 80 km/h, the old owner will have to pay about 5,000 rubles.

List of fines that are issued by car number and sent to the old owner:

driving into the oncoming lane (4–5 thousand rubles);
driving on the sidewalk, pedestrian path (about 2 thousand rubles);
violation of road markings (1–1.5 thousand rubles);
ignoring or incorrectly following road signs (about a thousand rubles, but in some cases, for example, if the rules are violated by a truck on a busy highway - up to 5 thousand rubles);
and many others.

As you can see, almost all common violations entail a fine based on the vehicle number. Thus, in 90% of cases, instead of the new owner of the car, the old owner will have to pay the fine.

How can I get my money back?

If you receive fines after selling your car, unfortunately, you have to pay them. This is the law. But you can fully return your finances if you immediately file a lawsuit against the new owner of the car after payment. To do this, you will need to collect several documents:

purchase and sale agreement (the main document, which in the traffic police serves as the main evidence of the fact that the car belongs to a completely different person);
act of acceptance and transfer of the car to the new owner;
copies of receipts confirming payment of the fine (they must be presented in court when applying there to demand the recovery of unfairly spent money from the new owner of the car).

Another option for returning money is to put the car on the wanted list. If you do not want to deal with the court, you can use this option. As soon as the car is discovered, it will be immediately seized, and the new owner will be able to get it back only after your financial claims have been satisfied.

Of course, the easiest way would be to call the new owner and personally sort out the situation. But in practice, this method turns out to be ineffective, because many people do not want to make contact, especially if it concerns money.

How to stop receiving fines? Ways to solve the problem

After selling a car, fines come: what to do? The above options with trial and search are unacceptable for many people, because they do not want to get involved in such processes. In addition, you can go to court or put a car on the wanted list only after the fine has already been paid. But the problem can be resolved before the first “letter of happiness” arrives.

Peaceful solution to the problem

This is an obvious, but by no means the most accessible option to get out of the current situation. If the previous owner of the car chooses this method, he must act according to the following algorithm:

call or meet the new owner of the car.
find out why you are receiving fines instead;
convince him to pay the fines;
save the receipt.

As a rule, the decisive argument in this difficult matter is that the new owner can receive a fine of 3,500 rubles if he does not re-register the purchased car within 10 days after the transaction. In addition, in some situations, such violations may even deprive him of his driver’s license for 3 years.

Cancellation of registration

This method only works if there have been no fines yet. You need to go to the traffic police and find out whether the new owner has re-registered the car. If they answer that this did not happen, and the 10 days specified by law have already passed, you can write an application to cancel the registration. This is a preventive measure, and if at least one fine has already been received, this option is not possible.

Application to the traffic police

This is a rather difficult, but the most legal way. Having received a fine for a sold car, you must write a complaint within 10 days stating that you do not agree with the decision to impose a fine. It should be written to the head of the traffic police. In such cases, the law always protects the interests of the previous owner. But you must provide proof that the car has changed ownership. The best option would be a purchase and sale agreement, which is why you should always keep a copy of it. You don’t have to submit the application in person, but send it through a special form on the traffic police website.

Cancellation of the contract

This is also one of the effective ways to stop (or prevent) receiving fines after selling a car under a purchase agreement. The contract can be canceled only if 10 days have already passed and the new owner has still not re-registered the car. If you have already received a fine before canceling the contract, you can obtain an exemption from paying it.

You will have to prove that the new owner committed the offense, but in practice this often poses problems. To avoid troubles, you need to keep all the papers related to the sale of the car.

Application to court

This option has already been discussed above. It is very effective if you want to get back the money spent on paying fines. But in order to prevent receiving fines in the future, you should follow one of the previous options. By the way, if you receive fines after selling a car in another region, then it is not necessary to go to this region and file a lawsuit there. You can go to the court of the locality where you live.

Is it possible to simply not pay the fine?

The answer is simple: you can't. Unfortunately, all fines received after selling a car in 2018 must either be paid or appealed through the appropriate authorities. Many people believe that since the car no longer belongs to them, there is no need to pay a fine. This is their main mistake.

The former owner may be subject to administrative liability within 130 days after he received the fine. In the first 10 days he can appeal the fine, in the next 30 days he must pay it, and in the next 90 he will be listed as a debtor, which will entail corresponding liability. If you ignore the payment and do not prove your non-involvement in the crimes committed, you can even end up under arrest for 15 days. Thus, one should not think that an unfairly imposed fine is a reason not to pay.

Read here what to do when towing a car.

When selling a car, it is always necessary to conclude a sales contract and store it, like all other documents. Fines that come in the name of the old owner must either be appealed within 10 days of receipt, or paid in full. Act in accordance with the law, because this is the only way to get back the money spent on paying unfair fines and get the fines stopped.

What to do if you receive a fine for a sold car?

The current procedure for registering the purchase and sale of a car does not oblige its seller to be present at the traffic police when the new owner re-registers it in his name. But, as often happens, simplicity also has a downside: you entered into an agreement, the buyer drove away in the car, and after a while you received a fine for a traffic violation committed after the sale. What to do in this situation?

According to the current regulations, the car buyer is given 10 days to change the owner’s registration data. Well, some unscrupulous buyers do not re-register even after this period, continuing to drive a car that, according to government organizations, belongs to the previous owner. In this case, both the transport tax and fines continue to arrive “at the old address.”

Theoretically, it is possible - to do this, you need to contact the new owner of the car and solve the problem directly with him, agreeing on his payment of the received fine. At the same time, it is worth clarifying whether he carried out the procedure for changing ownership at the traffic police. Sometimes this method of solving the problem works, and a conscientious buyer saves the seller from having to appeal the fine. However, if there is no connection with the new owner, you can only use formal methods.

Having received a fine for a sold car, you can and should appeal it. To do this, it is necessary to draw up an application to cancel the decision on an administrative offense and send it by registered mail with return receipt requested to the address of TsAFAP (Center for Automatic Recording of Administrative Offenses) indicated in the received decision. A copy of the purchase and sale agreement must be attached to the application: it indicates the date of execution of the transaction, and it is proof that at the time of the violation you were no longer the owner of the car.

An alternative option for filing an application to appeal a fine is to send it electronically. To do this, you need to submit an application on the traffic police website and also attach a copy of the purchase and sale agreement to it. However, in this case two facts should be taken into account. Firstly, the procedure for appealing a decision electronically may require an electronic digital signature - an electronic digital signature confirming the identity of the applicant. You can find out what it is and how to get it on the State Services website . Secondly, the traffic police still indicate that “appeals that are subject to consideration in the manner established by the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses must be sent in writing.” Thus, the first option, sending the application by registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt, is more reliable.

“A complaint against a resolution in a case of an administrative offense can be filed within ten days from the date of delivery or receipt of a copy of the resolution (Article 30.3 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses),” is the clear answer given by the official website of the traffic police. However, if you were unable to appeal the decision within 10 days for a good reason, you can do this: to do this, the complaint must also be accompanied by a petition to restore the deadline for appealing the decision on an administrative offense and documents proving the impossibility of appealing the decision within the period established by law.

There is only one way to completely eliminate the possibility of receiving a fine for a sold car: personally visit the traffic police department with the buyer and make sure that he has re-registered the car in his name immediately after you sign the sales contract. If you are not present with the new owner during the re-registration procedure, it is worth remembering that the law allows 10 days for this. Accordingly, 10 days after the sale, you should definitely check the registration history of the sold car using a special service on the traffic police website and make sure that it was registered to the new owner.

If the car was not re-registered within the period established by law, and there is no connection with the buyer, you can protect yourself by contacting the traffic police department with a passport and a sales contract and writing an application to terminate the registration of the car .

It is worth understanding that receiving a fine for a sold car is a problem that will not solve itself if you ignore it. Until it is proven that you are not involved in the offense committed and that you sold the car, you are the violator. This means that the fine must either be appealed or paid. According to the Code of Administrative Offenses, the fine must be paid “no later than sixty days from the date the decision to impose an administrative fine comes into force” - that is, from the moment it was received. At the same time, as we remember, you are given another 10 days to appeal the fine received. Thus, if you do not appeal the fine within 10 days, and then do not pay it within 60 days, the case will be transferred to the bailiffs.

This will not end either: according to the Code of Administrative Offenses, “failure to pay an administrative fine within the period provided for by this Code entails the imposition of an administrative fine in the amount of twice the amount of the unpaid administrative fine, but not less than one thousand rubles, or administrative arrest for a term of up to fifteen days, or compulsory labor.” for up to fifty hours." And although administrative arrest does not apply to violations recorded using automatic cameras, the pleasure of collecting a double fine in court (in addition to paying the fine itself) is not enough. Therefore, if you receive an “unfair” fine, do not ignore it, hoping that “the injustice will be sorted out without you,” but be sure to start resolving this issue.

How to cancel traffic police fines after selling a car

The buyer is required to register the vehicle in his name within 10 days after the purchase and sale agreement is executed, but fines received before registration will go to the previous owner. The same will happen if the buyer decides not to re-register the car in his name at all.

From the point of view of the law, the transfer of ownership from the seller to the buyer occurs at the moment of concluding the purchase and sale agreement. In this case, the agreement can be drawn up in any written form, and to recognize it as legally valid, the signatures of the parties to the transaction are sufficient. But the traffic police cannot find out about the change of owner on their own.

However, information about the owner in the traffic police databases will be updated only at the time of re-registration of the car, for which a period of 10 days is allotted. After this time, the new owner can be fined for driving a vehicle that is not registered in the prescribed manner in the amount of 500 to 5000 rubles. with possible deprivation of rights for three months.

When registering a violation manually, the traffic police officer will issue a fine to the driver, but automatic video recording systems read the car number and compare it with the traffic police database. In this case, the fine is received by the one who, at the time of the violation, is entered in the vehicle’s title as the owner, and letters with fine decisions will be sent to the old owner. The new owner can find out about these receipts only if he wants to independently check the fines on specialized portals.

Someone else's fine will not disappear from the database even after the new owner re-registers the car in his name: from the point of view of the system, the penalty has already been imposed on the old owner and requires payment. You can file a complaint and demand the cancellation of the decision within 10 days after receiving the receipt, and if this is not done, then you will still have to pay the fine.

If you do not do this, then after the end of the payment period the fine will be transferred to the bailiffs, who can collect it in a special manner, for example, write it off from the bank card of the former owner. In addition, non-payment may be punished with a double fine, administrative arrest or compulsory labor, as well as restrictions on traveling abroad.

In order to find out whether the car has been re-registered to the new owner, you need to make a request on the traffic police website in the “Vehicle check” section. You can find out about the dates of registration actions by the VIN number of the car, but the traffic police website often does not function. Another option is the Moscow government website Autocode, but it only works with data from Moscow and the Moscow region. There are also a number of paid resources that operate throughout Russia. Finally, you can personally submit a corresponding request to any traffic police department.

To cancel fines, you will have to submit an application to the traffic police department that issued the receipt, or to the centers for automatic recording of offenses, and this must be done within 10 days from the date of receipt of a copy of the decision. For example, in Moscow such an application can be submitted in electronic format on the Autocode website. If the decision has not been appealed within 10 days, then you can file a petition to restore the appeal period, but there must be compelling reasons for this, for example, being on a business trip or in a medical facility.

The application must describe that the car was sold and attach a copy of the purchase and sale agreement. Such a statement will have to be written in relation to each fine. As a rule, if the necessary documents are provided, these complaints are quickly satisfied, and fines are issued to the new owner.

If the new owner ignores the requirements for mandatory re-registration, the former owner has the right to independently stop registering the car after 10 days from the date specified in the purchase and sale agreement. To do this, you will have to visit the traffic police department and submit an application with your passport and the original purchase and sale agreement. The police will issue a certificate of deregistration of the car. The buyer will remain the owner of the car, but will no longer be able to legally operate it, and the car itself will be put on the wanted list. Subsequently, the buyer will be forced to pay a fine and carry out registration actions.

If the buyer is ready to make contact, you can draw up a new sales agreement with him and at the same time carry out the necessary registration steps. Otherwise, the only option left is to deregister the car due to loss. Loss is the loss of a vehicle, in which, unlike theft or theft, a criminal case is not initiated. The traffic police regulations allow you to terminate registration at the request of the owner, and the car is also put on the wanted list. Only the previous owner can restore the accounting, and the parties in such cases have to come to an agreement.