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Scrappage Scheme Rules Relaxed for Spouses

Married-Couple
Posted by Shane Teskey on 4 March 2010 in New Car Registration Stats

Good news! The Revenue Commissioners have clarified and relaxed some of the acceptance criteria for cars registered or insured in the name of a spouse!

When the scrappage scheme was first introduced one of the conditions was that the vehicle must have been insured for 12 of the previous 18 months. However many potential buyers complained that the rule was being interpreted differently meaning that the vehicle must have been insured in the name of the registered owner for 12 of the previous 18 months.

Disappointed Buyers

This prompted a large number of comments to our original blog post from buyers disappointed that although their car satisfied all the other relevant conditions, it didn’t qualify under the revised insurance rule.

This was because a large number of registered owners were insured as named drivers and consequently not specified on the actual insurance policy.

Good News for Spouses

Good News for Spouses

Good News for Spouses

The good news for buyers is that the legislation has been amended to take account of this common situation and now reads as follows;

“(5) For the purposes of subsection (2)(c) and (h), any reference to ‘person’ may, in the application of those provisions, be construed by the Commissioners as a reference to the person concerned or to that person’s spouse.”.

This means the vehicle to be scrapped may now have the policy of insurance or the registration of the new vehicle in the name of the spouse – however the Minister for Finance underlined in debating this amendment that this does not include other family members.

But what exactly is a ‘Spouse’?

In their advisory comments Revenue indicated that it is up to the dealer to satisfy themselves what exactly a spouse is and who the qualifying spouse is in the application for scrappage.

“While this opens up the scheme somewhat, it does pose some challenges to the dealers who will have to determine exactly what a spouse is and who is a spouse. It may prove quite challenging to determine whether two people sharing a name with the same address are brother and sister, father and daughter or spouses and whether two people with different names sharing an address are a married couple who have retained their own names, living together without any State recognition or simply housemates or flat mates who see an opportunity.”

The Oxford dictionary presently defines spouse as a noun meaning ‘Husband or Wife’ so it may be worth bringing a copy of your marriage certificate to your local dealer if you’re thinking of available of the scrappage scheme!

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