RHONDALL Feeles, vice president of the TT Automotive Dealers Association, has commended the Ministry of Trade and Industry for notifying used car dealers and especially personal importers that import licences issued this year will not be revalidated for vehicles arriving after December 31.

Speaking with Newsday on Wednesday, Feeles said the notice issued the previous day will save individual importers considerable inconvenience and expense.

A similar notice was issued last year, but many importers were still caught out, expecting import licences to be revalidated for vehicles arriving after December 31, which had previously been common practice but not official policy.

"There should (still) be a grace period," Feeles said, "because this year in particular, shipping has been horrendous."

"However, it is good to see that they have notified people, particularly the personal importers, because we, the dealers, we understand this has happened last year and were expecting it again this year."

But Feeles said the complete discontinuance of licence revalidation has had a tremendous negative impact on the industry, which has faced many other challenges in recent years.

"I do believe it is something that has caused a bit of trauma," he said.

"(At the end of) last year, it did traumatise a lot of dealers, literally, because a number of them and personal importers...would have imported vehicles that landed in January, and many of them would have been caught up with the vehicles getting more or less stagnant on the port and (not being) cleared.

Feeles said he is certain the ministry began issuing the notices about the discontinuation of revalidation of licences over the past two years after a number of importers took legal action when they were unable to clear their vehicles at the port, leaving them with hefty storage fees, which cost about $200-$300 per day.

"Sometimes you buy a car (and) after clearance and registration (you expect) to spend however many thousands and you have to pay more than that in storage fees.

"It's almost like $6,000 per month per car, so when that stays on the port for five months, you're looking at $30,000."

The ministry first stopped revalidating licences without notice around the time when the permissible age for imported used vehicles was reduced, Feeles said, and importers were told to apply for clearance. But the matter would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

"So by the time they got to your case, it could have taken four, five, six months, for some people even a year, I imagine, as well."

While storage fees are sometimes waived the importer must prove that an agency such as Customs was responsible for the delay in clearance.

The ministry "would say that revalidation is not guaranteed. There is no policy that they have to revalidate, and based on that premise, the revalidation is something they would say that they just did to accommodate."

In its notice on Tuesday, the Ministry