It’s white! The new MOT certificate

Story: RALPH MORTON

IT’s no longer white!

Should the MOT certificate be white?

Why isn’t the MOT green any more?

We’ve had lots of readers enquiring about this. And with good reason.

If you’ve just got your new business car or company car MOT’d  for the first time, memory will have you expecting a green certificate.

But that’s not the case. Since  17 October 2011, the  MOT certificate has been given a makeover.

Instead of the traditional green and white form, MOT certificates have been printed on to a single side of plain A4 paper in black ink. And that’s been the case since Monday 17 October 2011.

Although the certificate looks different it is still confirmation that an MOT result has been recorded on the official MOT database, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) has confirmed.

VOSA said the new white MOT format would give many advantages to business car drivers, since the advisory notice, which warns owners of those defects that do not warrant a failure and was previously printed on a separate sheet, is now shown on the same single white sheet.

If your business buys used vehicles as company cars, then this will also provide additional information on the condition of the car, provided they are more than three years old of course. Printed on the MOT certificate will be the advisories – there’s no chance of the old separate sheet ‘going missing’.

Alastair Peoples, chief executive of VOSA said: “Making this change to the MOT certificate will help reduce costs for VOSA and for garages at the same time as providing information in a more useful format.”

For business car insurance and for a car to remain road legal, it must be given an MOT once it is three years old. The penalty for driving a car on the road without a valid MOT certificate is a£60  fixed penalty notice,  and a potential court fine of up to £1,000.

In terms of company car law, existing certificates in the old green colour remain valid until they expire. An MOT must be renewed every year.

Since 2006 all MOT test results have been entered in to the MOT database. The database can be accessed online and certificates can be verified against the electronic record.

Information on how to check an MOT is genuine

• Go to the DirectGov site and read this:Check your vehicle’s MOT status and history online