Change your name on your V5C log book

Your driving licence identifies you as a driver. The V5C records the vehicle’s registered keeper. Even when both records belong to you and both are handled by DVLA, changing one does not complete the other. DVLA expressly requires a separate V5C update when your name changes. DVLA: changing your name on a driving licence

Treat each vehicle as its own task. If your household has two cars registered in your former name, check both log books. If a leasing company holds the V5C, ask it how to update the keeper information rather than completing paperwork you do not hold.

DVLA lists a deed poll as proof for a legal name change. Its V5C guidance makes specific exceptions for changes following marriage or divorce, and correction of a spelling error: those cases do not require name-change proof under that page’s instructions. Explain the actual reason accurately. DVLA: change your name on your V5C

For a chosen first name, a new family surname or another personal change recorded by deed poll, keep the names on the deed, covering letter and V5C consistent. Where you have changed names more than once, prepare the links from the keeper name currently shown to the name you now use.

If vehicle tax is due within four weeks, DVLA says to tax the vehicle before posting the V5C, or use a Post Office offering vehicle tax to deal with the details and tax together. Check the required MOT evidence. If the log book is lost, the name-change route uses V62, an explanatory letter and a £25 replacement fee. DVLA: change your name on your V5C

DVLA says a replacement can take up to six weeks, but asks you to contact it after four weeks if it has not arrived. Record your posting date and follow up rather than allowing the request to drift. These are DVLA timeframes, separate from preparation and delivery of your deed poll.