Chris the Fish wrote:
roythebus wrote:
The registered keeper is not always the owner. If you get a car on HP your name is the RK, the car is owned by the HP company until you've fully paid for it.
So the HP Company would have to have a DBS, or the Directors, or all the Employees?
Interesting question that I meant to find out the answer to recently, but couldn't be bothered.
I assume that whoever has day-to-day control of the vehicle is deemed by local authorities to be the 'operator' (as the Scottish legislation puts it) of the vehicle and thus the relevant licensee, even though they don't technically own the vehicle under an HP agreement - suspect would be similar under certain lease agreements, even when the lessee would *never* own the vehicle.
So I suppose for licensing the vehicle as a taxi it's a bit like the registered keeper thing - ownership isn't the defining characteristic, although I doubt if being the registered keeper necessarily coincides with who would be the relevant taxi licensee either.
Recall a few years ago, when a drunk driver hit my car, and my insurance co provided a car while mine was off the road. The vehicle was treated as a substitution on my own licence, and when my own car was back on the road it was treated as another substitution. (The insurance vehicle was tested and plated by the council.)
So I definitely didn't have any prospect of owning that vehicle and wasn't the registered keeper, yet the council still licensed it in my name.