You can be prosecuted for a clocked car you didn’t know was clocked
Selling a clocked car is an “absolute offence”, no intent required. Honest dealers are being caught for fraud they never committed. The only protection is provable due diligence.
Clocking a car isn’t illegal. Selling it is.
Altering a car’s odometer is not, in itself, illegal in the UK, which is why mileage-correction firms operate openly. The offence crystallises at the point of sale, when a clocked car is sold on without disclosure.
That grey area is exactly why clocked cars keep entering the trade. An estimated 2.5 million UK cars may have had their mileage altered, and they don’t carry a warning label.
“Under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPUT), selling a clocked car is an “absolute offence”. In the words of a senior Trading Standards officer: “you don’t have to know you’re doing it. It’s like speeding, you don’t have to know you’re doing 35 in a 30; the fact that you are means you are.””
, Senior Trading Standards officer, via Car Dealer Magazine
That 2023 fraudster sold his clocked cars to legitimate dealers. Those dealers unknowingly bought clocked stock, and would be exposed the moment they resold it. They are exactly the people this protects.
Real sentences are being handed down
Trading Standards offences can carry unlimited fines and, in the most serious cases, up to two years’ imprisonment. Recent prosecutions show it in practice.
A Hampshire trader was sentenced to 45 months (plus a further 12 for a previous suspended sentence) after clocking 32-33 vehicles totalling 2.75 million miles and falsifying service histories. The cars were sold to legitimate dealers across the country for a combined £445,957.
Source: National Trading Standards
A London trader who sold 46 clocked cars worth over £350,000, making an estimated £4,000-£5,000 profit per car, received a two-year suspended sentence, 100 hours’ unpaid work and a rehabilitation requirement.
Source: RBKC / Trading Standards
The only defence is provable due diligence
CPUT being an absolute offence isn’t the end of the story. Reg 13 provides a due-diligence defence: a dealer who took reasonable steps to investigate before selling can rely on it. Provable, documented due diligence is the protection against this no-fault liability.
That is exactly what Mileage Detective sells: the proof.
- A dated, documented check of the official mileage record against MOT history, contemporaneous evidence you investigated before stocking or selling.
- Engineer inspections for higher-value or suspect cars, with a documented finding.
- Every certificate is tamper-evident, timestamped and independent, the form of evidence that supports a due-diligence defence.
In plain terms: A certificate supports and evidences a due-diligence defence, it does not guarantee immunity, and whether a defence succeeds is for a court to weigh. It is your strongest evidence of due diligence, not a guarantee against prosecution.
Don’t be the dealer who didn’t check
Run a documented detection check on every car you buy and sell. It’s your strongest evidence of due diligence, from £29 per check.