When you purchase a personalised registration plate, the DVLA will issue you with a V750 Certificate of Entitlement. This records details of the person who purchased the plate, along with those of any nominated person. Only the people mentioned on the V750 can have this plate assigned to a vehicle of which they are the registered keeper.

Receipt of the V750, does not mean that the personalised plate has to be put straight onto a vehicle, the certificate allows you twelve months to take that step and the actual expiry date is shown on the document. If you are still not ready to assign the plate when the expiry date is nearing, you are able to extend the entitlement period for up to three years, at a charge of £25 per year. You can do this on the DVLA website or by signing section 2 of the V750 and sending this to the DVLA, along with a cheque to cover the fees.

Applications to extend the entitlement period must be made prior to the expiration date. Postal applications can be made within 28 days of expiry, while there is only a fourteen-day window for online applications. If you forget to extend your entitlement, you can send a letter to the DVLA explaining the reasons for the late application and enclosing the appropriate fee. The DVLA will then consider your application and respond to you accordingly.

If you lose your V750 you can apply for a free duplicate providing there are at least five days entitlement remaining.

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The first registration plate, which was issued in London in 1903, was A1. This started the process of using letters and numbers to differentiate and keep track of vehicles. There is evidence to suggest that registration plates were issued in some other areas of the UK slightly earlier, although there is no record of these registration marks.

The first owner of the A1 registration mark was Earl Russell who was among the throng that queued all night outside the offices of the London County Council to secure the honour. He won the plate and an excerpt from ‘Car Illustrated’ on 23rd December 1903 reads, “There has been some amount of competition for the securing of the number plate A1 and this has been acquired by Earl Russell for his Napier car. A Mr. L. H. Oliver of Edgware claims the distinction of personally handing the certificate for A1 over to Earl Russell.

A1 was also owned by the chairman of London County Council, but only for a short time. Later, in 1907, George V. Petty bought the car with A 1 assigned to it. He then proceeded to transfer it to several vehicles throughout his lifetime. On his death, in 1950, Trevor T. Laker inherited the plate. Petty’s last will and testament actually stated that Laker should use the plate until his death, at which point the registration plate was to be sold and the proceeds were to be donated to a dog charity. An ageing Laker actually sold the plate to Dunlop Holdings Ltd, although they did not take possession of it until his death. The £2,500 he received was donated to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

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Greek Registration plates follow a specific format, which comprises of a three-letter combination followed by a four-digit combination, for example ABC 1234, with the letters signifying the area in which the vehicles are registered. Registration plates for motorcycles exceeding 50cc follow a similar format, with the numerical combination running from 1 through to 999. Originally, Greek registration plates were purely numerical, with letters only being introduced as recently as 1972.

With regards to the letter combination, most districts, Athens and Thessaloniki being the only exceptions, take the first two letters as identifiers. The third letter changes alphabetically, after 9,000 plates have been registered. For example, plates from the Achacia district are represented by the letter combination AX. The plates would commence AXA followed by the four numbers, which would run in numerical order. Once the plate AXA 9999 has been issued, the format AXB 1000 would be used. This pattern would continue through to AXX. Incidentally, the Greek alphabet runs A, B, E, Z, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, T, Y and X.

The combinations are slightly different for overseas residents, who are assigned plates with one letter followed by four digits. Taxi drivers followed this same format until 2003 although the letters were red.

Greek registration plates are governed by the rules set out by the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. Article 35 states that all registration plates display Latin capital letters and Arabic digits.

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