Under current rules, a vehicle owner must re-register the vehicle within ten days if any data concerning the car or its owner has changed.
Is the driver obliged to change documents
For missing the deadline, neither MREO employees nor anyone else have the right to issue a fine or apply any other punishment to the driver. A traffic inspector simply cannot detect such a violation — after all, a motorist is not obliged to carry a civil passport at all times. AutoPortal was told about this by human rights activist and author of the books "100 Arguments Against Traffic Police Fines" and "Karavaev's Arguments Against Traffic Police Fines" Vladimir Karavaev.
In other words, if an inspector stops you and tries to fine you for allegedly untimely replacement of your driver's license, you can without hesitation call the traffic police hotline and report the employee's unlawful actions.
In the worst case, a driver who applies late to the MREO for a new license faces only a written explanation. MREO employees may request it under the guise of collection. However, as an informed source in the traffic police told AutoPortal, such cases are very rare. Most often, the license exchange procedure (whether done on time or not) goes without unnecessary delays or problems.
Maybe not change the license at all?
There is an opinion that it is not worth changing the license, so as to mislead traffic police inspectors and executive services. Allegedly, since there is no punishment, you can drive with the old license, and then protocols on traffic violations will be issued to the person named in the document. And since such a person supposedly no longer exists, you won't have to pay fines.
If you don't want to, don't change it, although by law it is mandatory. But this does not mean you will be able to avoid fines. As Vladimir Karavaev explained to AutoPortal, the executive service will eventually find the violator, no matter what surname he bears.
The result: trying to evade fines by refusing to replace the license is pointless.
What to do with the vehicle registration certificate
If, when changing your surname (first name, patronymic), you have not only a license with the old surname but also a vehicle registration certificate, the situation looks different.
If changing the license is not so mandatory (fortunately, now a vehicle registration certificate is enough to drive a car), then the registration certificate must be exchanged without fail. Otherwise, the car cannot be deregistered, and therefore cannot be sold, gifted, and so on. In this case, neither a marriage certificate nor a certificate of name change will help.
However, if you do not plan to perform any operations with the car in the near future, you can take your time — no sanctions are provided for this either.
Let us add: if the license has the old surname and the registration certificate has the new one, there should be no difficulties when selling or gifting.
What about insurance
As AutoPortal found out, changing your surname, first name, or patronymic does not require the owner to reissue OSAGO or CASCO policies.
There is simply no need for this now.
List of documents and nuances
To exchange a driver's license at the MREO, you will need:
- marriage certificate (original and copy);
- application of the established form (it is filled out by MREO employees, you only need to check the correctness of the data);
- receipt for payment for forms and traffic police services;
- two color photographs 3.5x4.5 cm;
- a valid medical certificate of the established form confirming fitness to drive vehicles of the corresponding category;
- passport or a document replacing it;
- current driver's license;
- driver's examination card.
It is worth emphasizing: to replace the license without retaking exams, confirming the fact of driving a car for the last 12 months is now not required.
We know that in some MREOs, for some unknown reason, they ask to bring the canceled violations ticket as well.
To find out whether it is really needed, we contacted one of the capital's MREOs. It must be said that getting through to them is not an easy task: either the line is constantly busy, or no one answers. Still, in a couple of hours it is possible to "get through." We asked whether the card and the violations ticket are mandatory, and heard: "bring all documents. And these too — we'll sort it out on the spot."
In turn, the Traffic Police Department stated: the absence of an examination card cannot be a reason for refusing to replace the license.
This was achieved, by the way, largely thanks to auto journalists. Some of them wanted to exchange old-style licenses (from Soviet times) for new ones, but their examination cards were lost. A duplicate can be obtained at the MREO where the license was issued, but some of these institutions no longer work, and many received licenses with cards in other republics of the former Soviet Union. This creates a vicious circle.
