Scottish Elises

My niece has had a private reg no for years but it has been on retention for the last 3 as she is working in Dubai. She was not keen to give it up but grudging paying to keep it on retention & not likely to be back here with a car for several years so I volunteered to put it onto our winter hack.
However when she sent me the paperwork the retention period ran out in the middle of August - it reads like there is nothing we can do to transfer it to us as it is out of date - has she lost the number or is there some way of retrieving it without having to pay going rate to re-buy it?
I intend sending forms and payment to DVLA with details and pleading her case, but has anyone had similar issues and know how best to proceed?

I was under the impression that if you let the retention run out you loose your entitlement to the number. Be interested to see if you can recover it as I have a plate on retention and am liable to forget to retain it when the time comes. It does say on the retention document in bold letters that you must apply before your right runs out .

I don't have any personal experience of this but going by the DVLA website all is not lost:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/PersonalisedRegAndNumberPlates/DG_172125 wrote:If the retention document has run out, the grantee must return the document and appropriate fee with a letter explaining why the application is late. The request will be considered.

Google and found this so looks like your at the mercy of the DVLA and what kind of day they are having:
"It may be possible to get your certificate renewed. It's at the discretion of the DVLA. The less time that has elapsed since the expiry date the higher the chance of a renewal. A week or so should not cause a problem, though there is no guarantee. If you are named as the purchaser on the certificate you can send it straight to the DVLA in Swansea. You should include a cover note explaining why the certificate had not been renewed. It's best to avoid claiming that you forgot, as the DVLA will be looking for something more substantial. You must include the renewal fee of £25. Cheques should be made payable to 'DVLA'".

You used to have to renew every 12 months but now you can extend the period for longer, up to 3 years.
Fee is £25 for one year, £50 for two years or £75 for three years.

That was what I was pinning my hopes on - to be fair her mail is on forward to another address and then sent on to her monthly so by the time she got the form, signed it and sent it back to us it was too late, so it is a reasonable case to be considered rather than just forgetting about it.

I had two that expired over the years and in both cases got them back with a nice letter - if the plate is 1X (thus can be sold for lots for the Osborne fund) you might struggle, NE55XXY or summat should be OK

Might be worth a trip to DVLA office and hope for a friendly counter person; saved one by applying it to a car that way once too as the plate had only expired 3 weeks

I had a similar problem with a plate that I thought was on retention.

Contacted the DVLA and they could not of been nicer. Was advised to write a nice letter explaining what had happened, had to pay the 3 years retention fee which was to be expected & had the plate back within a week.

Was very pleasantly surprised as to just how good they were to deal with.

Reasuring. Sadly nothing that exclusive Graeme - L9 ***

Just to update this, went into Glasgow DVLA office last week, they checked over the form, took the cheque (and letter of mitigation as to why it was late) and said we will get a new certificate in 3-4 weeks. Didn't seem interested that it was out of date by 3 weeks , so no reason to think they won't renew it given the response so far.