Passport problems

[OFG]

Righto

Please bear with me as this is a bit of a confusing post and I have only just got it straight in my head (I think )

I have a 2 year old pony at my yard at the moment as owners had insufficient land (have posted before about her). She is a rescue, seized by the RSPCA somewhere in Wales just over a year ago.

She was placed in a 'rescue' home and owner relinquished her and her brother to the RSPCA / rescue home. Both ponies sold and current owner bought filly off her friend who had bought both her and her brother.

Now, they didn't come with their passports. Current owners have been trying to sort them out for over a year. RSPCA / DEFRA / HPA and the Welsh Pony Cob Society have all been contacted and owners passed pillar to post.

Old owner (who had ponies seized) has confirmed he is happy to sign paperwork from HPA to say he agrees transfer of ownership. HPA say paperwork sent, old owner says never received. Defra / RSPCA / WPCS have decided to have nothing to do with the matter.

The file of paperwork between current owners and the HPA and other organisations is massive but no one is sorting the problem.

Now, if this was the owner not passporting the pony the respective organisations would be quick to fine them but are equally dragging their heels in getting these passports sorted for the owners.

Any advice on what to do now?

Wine, choccies and ice cream if you got this far and can understand / make head or tail of any of the above

 

[Maesfen]

Have they ever had passports or do I take it that HPA issued passports originally to old owner for them or was it some other PIO? If so and RSPCA don't want to know (which doesn't surprise me) I believe the old owner (as he would have been the last named in a passport) is quite legitimately able to apply for duplicate/replacements with whoever issued it. If they had passports they must have been microchipped so it's a simple matter for vet to scan them, make a note of the chip number for old or new owner to apply for a duplicate.
They need one to have the jabs entered, if the RSPCA have the passports they should have handed them over at time of handing the ponies over to new owner; they obviously haven't read the rules!

 

[Dolcé]

Have they spoken to the Horse Passport team at DEFRA, we dealt with a senior guy called Simon, can't remember his surname, but he actually ordered the passporting agency to issue us with a passport when we bought a horse with a false one. It can all take ages to sort out but obviously it helps if they are actually doing anything. The other thing they could try is Trading Standards as they are involved in horse passporting too and may be able to get things moving.

 

[cally6008]

It could be that the old owner has received paperwork but is saying otherwise.

Has the paperwork being sent special delivery by HPA or other means ? Can they prove it's been received ?

 

[OFG]

Have they ever had passports or do I take it that HPA issued passports originally to old owner for them or was it some other PIO? If so and RSPCA don't want to know (which doesn't surprise me) I believe the old owner (as he would have been the last named in a passport) is quite legitimately able to apply for duplicate/replacements with whoever issued it. If they had passports they must have been microchipped so it's a simple matter for vet to scan them, make a note of the chip number for old or new owner to apply for a duplicate.
They need one to have the jabs entered, if the RSPCA have the passports they should have handed them over at time of handing the ponies over to new owner; they obviously haven't read the rules!

Yes, they have had passports registered to original owner. I think because the RSPCA seized ponies from him the passports went with ponies? But if they did no one knows where they are now.

Assume they are chipped but not sure of details.

 

[OFG]

Have they spoken to the Horse Passport team at DEFRA, we dealt with a senior guy called Simon, can't remember his surname, but he actually ordered the passporting agency to issue us with a passport when we bought a horse with a false one. It can all take ages to sort out but obviously it helps if they are actually doing anything. The other thing they could try is Trading Standards as they are involved in horse passporting too and may be able to get things moving.

Yes, numerous times and have even paid a fee for the new passports to be released to them. However, DEFRA took their money, wrote them a letter to confirm the ponies have had a previous passport issued and that was that! They have said there isnt anything else they can do and take the matter up with the HPA

TS was a suggestion I made to current owner as it may act as an incentive for the relevant agencies to pull their fingers out.

 

[OFG]

It could be that the old owner has received paperwork but is saying otherwise.

Has the paperwork being sent special delivery by HPA or other means ? Can they prove it's been received ?

This is what I thought but HPA wouldn't confirm to current owners what is happening and what they are doing about it all.

 

[Lizzie0682]

I really feel for you, I had similar prob but 'luckily' my horse hadn't been microchipped so in the end we just got a new one. I must have spoke to every organisation in the meantime, many instances of 'lost' post / info from all of them. it was painful!!! Have you spoke to your vet?? In the end, my vet spoke to agencies and got things sorted, I didn't think to go them first, but I guess they see this sort of thing a lot? Good luck though, I feel your pain!

 

[Clippy]

Gut feeling tells me the way forward is to apply for duplicates. That way, the HPA can write to the recorded owner and ask them if they've sold the ponies. If they don't reply within a specified length of time, they'll issues the duplicates and do a transfer to the new owner.

Temporary passports can be issued at times like this until matters are resolved. It's nothing more than a piece of paper but it has the name of the horse and passport number on it so you would be within the Law

 

[Maesfen]

Yes, numerous times and have even paid a fee for the new passports to be released to them. However, DEFRA took their money, wrote them a letter to confirm the ponies have had a previous passport issued and that was that! They have said there isnt anything else they can do and take the matter up with the HPA

TS was a suggestion I made to current owner as it may act as an incentive for the relevant agencies to pull their fingers out.

Typical DEFRA!
In that case, they have the letter so get them to apply for duplicate PPs.
BTW if it was born 2009 or after then it had to be microchipped to get a PP so it's easy enough to check as I said before. I won't say what I think of the HPA, had my knuckles rapped for that before but tin = pot comes to mind.