Motor Vehicle Registration Certificates

Allow me to introduce myself; I am Dirk van Der Walt, co-owner and founding member at Webuycars Pty Ltd.

We here at www.webuycars.co.za, would like to make use of this opportunity to address a topic that is seldom spoken about, but which we feel could be of tremendous help to the right person at the right time.

The South African Natis (National Traffic Information System) Certificate of Registration is one of those ugly topics that you don’t need to know anything about, until you do, and then it is utter chaos and confusion. Red tape and boundless frustration comes to mind with the mere mention of “The Document”. Often it involves you meeting a side of yourself you never knew could easily murder someone with their bare hands.

In this article here today, we would love to save you some of this frustration, and share with you a couple of tips and tricks in dealing with issues around license and registration of motor-vehicles, and more specifically the in’s and out’s around the Natis Certificate of Registration.

When you buy a new vehicle, normally the dealership does the registration for you. There is a service charge involved called the “Service and Delivery Fee”, which covers this among other things.

If you buy with finance, and it gets registered on the bank’s name, with you as “Owner”, and the bank as “Title Holder” (Guess who trumps who?) on the Natis Certificate of Registration, which is like the Title Deed of a vehicle.

The bank keeps this certificate until you are done paying the vehicle. When you have paid the vehicle in full thus settled the outstanding financed amount, they send the Natis Certificate of Registration on to you, and you are then obliged to change yourself to both Title Holder and Owner. There is no repercussions if you neglect to do this however, that is until you happen to lose this document and have to arrange to obtain a new one.

It is not called a “New One” oddly enough, it is called a “Duplicate”, even if it is the sole surviving current original. Also important to know, if you buy a vehicle from someone, and they hand you the Natis Certificate of Registration, normally they will also have you sign in duplicate the Change Of Ownership form, it used to be yellow, but the Government ran out of yellow paper years ago, so it is white these days - they will hand in that Change Of Ownership form at the Licensing offices or Roadworthy Agency, which will oblige you to register the vehicle on your name, and supposedly free them of accountability for future traffic violation charges. (E-toll is a different kettle of fish all together.)

But suppose they did not hand in a Change of Ownership, they just kept it for in-case, and you failed to register, and they kept on receiving your fines. Now suppose they keep their head about them, and they go and apply for a Duplicate, then you are thoroughly screwed, because although you still have an Original and authentic Duplicate Natis Certificate in your hands, it has now gone stale on you, and if presented will immediately show as invalid on the Natis System, seeing that a new duplicate had been issued.

Change of Ownership is best done at a Roadworthy Center like AA-Dekra, or an agent that does this sort of thing.

If you lose your Natis Certificate of registration, pictured in some sort of green coloured document, you have to go in person with identification and valid proof of residence, and apply for a duplicate document. This is normally issued a few days later only, to no one other than the title holder, who must conduct this application process in person. If the bank is still the registered title-holder, then this task must be done through the bank. The bank will require proof of payment of handling and application fees before they initiate this process on your behalf. I trust you are now beginning to see what exceptional fun this can become, especially in a country where very long queues and very low levels of service delivery is the norm.

It is important to be in the right que with the right documents, otherwise you will be sent back home, or at the least to the back of another que’s tailed outside the building, on the street.

If you are a foreign person, you can’t do any registrations of motor-vehicles on your name before you have obtained a Vehicle Register Certificate, same as businesses who register all their vehicles on such a register number, and have to produce this certificate together with proof of residence and Identification when conducting Change Of Ownership or Vehicle Registration Transactions.

Normally there is the so called NCO or Change of Ownership form that also accompany this process. (Pictured in Yellow Above.) These forms can be obtained from the Municipal Traffic and Licensing offices, Roadworthy Centres, or you can Download them from www.enatis.com 

You must register and license your motor vehicle within 21 days after a change of ownership. If you do not register it, you will have to pay arrears and penalties. The motor vehicle registration is recorded on the national traffic information system (eNaTIS). Your vehicle’s registration becomes null and void if: I have been working with vehicle buying, selling and registrations for close on twenty years, and the best advice I can give any private person when it comes to these issues is to go to your closest Roadworthy Centre, ask them what you need to do and get the right forms from them, be nice to them and ask them to mark with a pencil where you should complete what parts of the form, where you get this information, and where to go after that with what other forms in your hand, as well as what are the least congested times to go to the Licensing Offices, etc.