You've relicensed your vehicle online but the licence label hasn't arrived in the post yet. Can you use the vehicle?
In a word ... probably. Many people have complained to us that they’ve renewed their vehicle licence online, used the vehicle before the new label arrives, and been given a $200 ticket by a rapacious parking warden for not displaying a current licence label.
According to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), you should receive the new label from its online service within five days of renewing. Parking wardens don't have the ability to check on the spot whether a vehicle has a current licence – so they issue a ticket if no licence label is on display or it has expired.
But most local councils will waive these tickets if you write to challenge the offence. “As long as the vehicle was licensed at the time it got the ticket, the ticket will be cancelled,” says Wellington City Council’s Colleen Thessman.
That’s because there’s a legal defence. An NZTA spokesperson said “providing the old licence hasn’t been expired for more than seven days and the person applied to license the vehicle before the expiry, there’s a defence against that offence."
As long as you meet these criteria and write to your council challenging the ticket, it should be waived.
And if you lose your licence label or it goes astray in the post, you can go to any NZTA agent, such as NZ Post or VTNZ, and have your licence label reprinted for free.
Licence or registration?
Vehicle registration is a one-off fee paid to register a vehicle and get number plates – for example, when buying a new vehicle. Licensing is an ongoing fee to use that vehicle on the road and this is the fee we pay annually. What many people call registration is a vehicle licence.
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We just received a parking infringement letter in the post, as the parking warden was unable to attach to the car???? Strangely enough the time they specified we were parking illegally (my husband who was driving the car) had already entered the gym. So he had to drive down from Kelburn Parade to Taranaki st, park in the Hope Gibbons building and he still had arrived at the gym to scan his membership which had recorded him entering the gym still within 5mins of apparently being parked in Kelburn. Possibly the reason why they couldn't attach the infringment notice, because the car wasn't even there. What is happening to Park wise, are they under so much pressure to issue tickets, that they resort to issuing fasle information. I've never heard of a ticket being issued when the car isn't there to attach to the window wiper, is this legal and how on earth do we stay on top of these dodgy wardens who just randomly issues tickets without any breach involved.
Strictly speaking there is an offence for failing to display a wof but not for not displaying a licence label. So provided you have one then no conviction can occur even if no rego displayed on the vehicle at the time.
If I do leave this until the last moment, I print off the reciept given at the end of the transaction and leave that in the car until new label turns up. Should work as shows all vehicle details?
Got my notice , did the re-licensing on line and got the label in 3 days.
Well ahead of expiry date.
It seems lot of people leave taking action until the last possible moment.
Good luck trying to get people to understand the difference between licensing and registration :)