Bill Holland drove his Mazda BT-50 ute for 13 years without any drama until ill health meant he had no choice but to sell it.

The Whangārei retiree decided to take his prized possession to
a local car dealer and was gobsmacked when checks revealed he was not the vehicle’s registered owner.

The ute, which he bought new, was in someone else’s name. He rang his wife Kathrine who went down to the Whangārei police station where she was advised the ute was “definitely” not under her husband’s name.

It meant Bill Holland could not sell his ute, registration plate A, on March 31, because he was not the registered owner. Perplexed, she then went to a Vehicle Testing New Zealand (VTNZ) office in Kamo and bought new number plates for $30 and registered them under his name for the sale of the ute to go through.

Unbeknown to them, someone had changed ownership of the ute on March 10. Not only that, but Kathrine Holland also found out that person, a male, not only bought new number plates, registration plate B, but he also registered it under the couple’s name.

That bit was discovered when she received two outstanding payment notices from BP and another reminder, and a toll road bill from Tauranga, for registration B.

A picture of a Mazda ute, similar to the one Bill Holland owned, on the BP Connect Fairy Springs in Rotorua on April 14, accompanied a BP payment notice sent to her.

“We’ll just keep getting the bills if he’s still in Rotorua and Tauranga zipping around. It’s a nightmare. I don’t know where the plates were issued but it happened on March 10,” Kathrine Holland said.

“What I am having trouble understanding is, when Bill rang and told me the ute was not in his name, I went down to the vehicle testing centre in town and they said ‘Oh, that’s easily done. Just come in with a driver’s licence and say the plates are stuffed and we give them new plates’. I thought ‘Oh, this is crazy’.”

Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency said while the process for vehicle registration/deregistration worked for the majority of the public, there was a small percentage of people who fraudulently obtained plates.

Bill Holland received a notice from Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency on April 1 – three weeks after the change of ownership – to say he was no longer the registered person for a Mazda BT-50, registration plate A.

His wife said a police officer she spoke to in Whangārei said the person who fraudulently changed the ownership of the ute and registered a different set of plates under their name likely stole the Mazda ute seen on the BP forecourt in Rotorua and put plate B on it.

“What I don’t understand is why they gave him new plates on my name and his driver’s licence. That’s what I could never get. (Plate B) is supposed to be null and void because we’ve now re-registered the ute in our name with another lot of plates.

“So (plate B) should have been canned in the system, right? But it isn’t. Plate B is running around just doing what it wants to do under my name. I had to do a police report about that.

“I rang BP and said ‘This is crazy’ and they said ‘Oh it happens all the time’. If we hadn’t tried to sell it, we’d have been none the wiser. You don’t go and check until you want something. I’ve been to Waka Kotahi, I’ve been to BP, I’ve been to the tollway thing, and nobody knows how this happened.”

A police spokesperson confirmed the matter was being investigated. VTNZ is also investigating the matter and is waiting for information from other agencies.

An NZTA spokesperson said LANDATA, the vehicle inspection portal, was an enforcement register that did not hold the legal ownership or title of a vehicle.

The MVR existed mainly so that authorities like police and Waka Kotahi could send notices for fees, fines and tickets to the person who was in charge of a vehicle, the spokesperson said.

“For that reason, the Motor Vehicle Register (MVR) lists individuals as the ‘registered person’ in charge of vehicles, not as the owners of vehicles. The difference between a ‘registered person’ and ‘legal owner’ of a motor vehicle in New Zealand is an important distinction, but one which isn’t widely understood.”

In the case of the Hollands, the spokesperson said a person completed the Change of Registered Person buyer (MR13B form) to put the vehicle plate A into their name and the appropriate identification would have been provided at the time of the transaction to the front counter agent.

After registering the vehicle under their name, the person visited another motor vehicle agent to complete an MR6A – application for a replacement plate form and provided identification and forms.

“You can get replacement plates issued for the reason of ‘lost, destroyed, damaged, non-reflectorised, personalised plate transaction or stolen.’ This issued the applicant with the (plate B).

“When an MR13B is completed, the previously registered person is sent a letter/email automatically advising that they are no longer the registered person. This usually prompts the person to call us if a mistake has been made.

“From here, the person who has possession of the vehicle would usually be asked to send images of the vehicle, with the plates and a reference number to provide proof. We would usually then be able to reverse the transactions to keep the integrity of the register and the number of registered persons.”

Waka Kotahi’s customer response team also has processes in place to send out letters to those who incorrectly completed the MR13B and MR6A, the spokesperson said.

Imran Ali is a senior reporter who does general news reporting at the Advocate after more than two decades covering courts. He also takes a keen interest in rugby.