I've had a definite leaning towards advising all potential buyers to study the V5 and to take as much notice of it as they should of service history. Some would say to the point of boredom!
My belief is that say a history of 2 short-period ownerships for example would lead to suspicion that the car has been troublesome, and has been quickly offloaded. The V5 would provide that evidence via.the registered keeper and the previous keeper.
Not any longer, since the latest version only shows the registered keeper and simply the number of previous owners - but no details of that previous keeper or how long they had had it. So if your potential purchase has been 'conveniently' registered to the selling dealer/seller to hide the fact that its previous owner was say a school of motoring, or a day hire company then you now just wouldn't have a clue!
The DVLA has previously provided a service to registered owners whereby they could request details of previous ownership, and this was great for classic car owners who wanted to trace the history of ownership. Now discontinued - probably under some data protection cop out. No doubt though, set youself up as a car parking company, pay DVLA a small charge and up comes the current keeper details!
Kind regards,
Gareth.