Originally Posted by
dergside
I'm not an apologist for VRT by any means, every € I've given them for it over the years still sticks in my throat. However, in reviewing market prices like this they are following the rules of the process pretty much as has been laid out for the nearly 30 years that its existed.
When the market moves, they reevaluate their assignment of Depreciation codes to individual cars to ensure that the Open Market Selling Price (OMSP) is appropriate. If the table of residual values for the depreciation code are no longer accurate then they try to align the evidence of market values to the most appropriate other table and assign the corresponding depreciation group. When markets and value rise, that means more VRT and when they fall it should be less. To be fair to them, back in the Crash days they did lots of significant reevaluations in a downward direction to reflect that there was a lot of stuff that it was hard to give away at the time. There generally aren't that many cases where they significantly overvalue OMSP's and I'd be reasonably confident that where there is evidence that they have then an appeal has a good chance of succeeding.
As james forde points out, even when they do make adjustments, they'll most often do them in multiple small increments over a period rather than a single large change, so that they are generally not causing market value changes, but reflecting the market forces that are already out there.