Can you keep the car’s license plates when you sell it?
Your car's number plate can be an arrangement of numbers or a personalised message to all, but do you get to keep it when the car gets sold?
A vehicle number plate is used by law enforcement to denote ownership on the e-Natis system and is used to identify a vehicle and its owner. Unlike some other countries, in South Africa, license plates are issued to a motor vehicle, not a private entity.
Related: Do you have to register and license a car as soon as you buy it?
In SA, the standard six characters, followed by the provincial abbreviation number plate, will follow the car as it is sold by dealers and registered to different owners.
This changes when the vehicle is sold between private entities or is re-registered in a different province. A new number plate is created on the e-Natis system when registration occurs, and the old number plate is then cleared from the system and could possibly be recycled by the system later.
The only instance when you can retain a number plate is when it is personalised, as the plate is registered to you and not the vehicle. In the case of personalized number plates, these are issued to the person who purchased them and can be transferred between vehicles.
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