Oh dear, a flaw in our plan.....

[Malnoueans]

We have owned a maison secondaire in France for over ten years, and in fact have owned a French registered car for much of that time which we just use while in France. No problems there - we have been stopped by french police a couple of times on routine checks and no issues, produce paperwork, our UK passports and on our way.

Now we are hoping to take life a bit easier, and have a "silver gap year" which may well turn into full blown retirement. We will base in France for that time and are planning to buy a mobile home and do some travelling around Europe. We were planning to buy a LHD vehicle in France, and drive it across to UK to bring back what we need. However, it seems from reading various posts here that our plan has a flaw..... as UK residents we can't drive a French registered vehicle in UK?!!! I have seen this in various posts, but want it to not be true as we are about to sally forth to France to purchase said mobile home.  Aggghhhh!

Assuming these rules still apply, we may now have to buy a UK registered van, and re-register it in France, then possibly re-register it in Uk at some point in the future?

Additionally, we have never been resident in France. How long can we base in France before registering as resident?

Any help gratefully received!

 

 

 

 

[dave21478]

By the letter of the law, you are correct - A UK resident cant drive a foreign registered car on UK soil.

However, if I were you, I would go ahead anyway, and if stopped, say you are a resident in France. I assume you could show bills etc relating to your French house which would be enough to satisfy a policeman at the side of the road.

No doubt everyone will be along momentarily on a herd of high horses to say this is wrong, but the only real alternative involves a lot of re-registering and expense.

[PaulT]

Yes, illegal.

I wonder how many police officers know this aspect of the Law?

However, I wonder what the outcome would be if one did know and you are stopped?

Presumably, the vehicle would be seized and a recovery and storage costs to be paid until the vehicle was legal on UK roads, which would be problematical if of an age whereby it needed an MOT, i.e. you cannot take it for an MOT.

How about insurance - it would have been illegally driven on UK roads so presumably invalidating the insurance.

To quote Clint Eastwood 'do you feel lucky punk'.

[Loiseau]

I know from this forum that I m not allowed to drive my French-reg voiture secondaire in the UK, but my French insurer did assure me at the outset (before I was aware of said rule) that insurancewise it was ok.

So maybe from the insurance point of view alone it would be covered?

Angela

[Gardengirl]

It's possible but not allowed - it depends on how you'd feel/act if stopped by police who knew the rules and whether you'd be happy arguing your corner if it became necessary. We decided it wasn't worth the worry for us to have a car parked on our drive for half the year with French numberplates; you might feel different with a capervan. Have a read of this thread from 2010:

http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/2308088/ShowPost.aspx

[Loiseau]

If one is allowed a digression, I LOVE the sound of a capervan!! Sounds a lot of fun. :-)

Angela

[woolybanana]

[quote user="Loiseau"]If one is allowed a digression, I LOVE the sound of a capervan!! Sounds a lot of fun. :-)

Angela[/quote]

Two minds with but a single thought. :-O

[PaulT]

'but my French insurer did assure me at the outset (before I was aware of said rule) that insurancewise it was ok. ;

I presume when you say French insurer you mean broker and not the company actually taking the risk. Unless you have it in writing from those taking the risk then your broker can easily say 'I would never say that as it would be outside of the terms of insurance'.

The broker just wants your money.

I am sure that French insurance companies are no different to UK ones - will wriggle every way they can not to pay up.

Is it somewhere on this forum or perhaps another of someone having a house fire and even though the insurance company has been ordered by a court to pay they still will not.

[powerdesal]

Whilst the law is clear on the subject, and I would never advocate breaking the law............should you be stopped in UK whilst driving a French registered car ( why would you be unless you had committed another offence ? ) and told the Police that you lived in France having ''proof'' of such with house bills, house tax receipts etc why would the UK Police suspect that you were other than genuine?

I must admit that I have done the very same, but never having been stopped it was not an issue.

The situation vis a vis the UK Police has not materially changed now that we are officially resident in France. We still use UK issued driving licences, have UK issued passports. If asked we can honestly state that we are resident in France but can't actually prove it any more easily than before.

With regard to insurance, our French car was and is insured in France, the insurance company ( AXA ) never asked for proof of French residence and, in any event, how could we have proved it? In the event of an accident we would have been French residents on holiday in UK - just as we are now.

[andyh4]

PaulT

I think you are taking too much a UK/US view of the insurance. The French insurance company have absolutely no problem insuring a vehicle for use in the UK. They do it for tens of thousands of French people every year. There are no grounds for them not to insure, since the law is a peculiar UK interpretation of an EU directive. The offence then is similar to minor speeding in the UK or parking illegally. Neither of which would invalidate insurance.

[Pickles]

[quote user="andyh4"] The French insurance company have absolutely no problem insuring a vehicle for use in the UK. They do it for tens of thousands of French people every year. There are no grounds for them not to insure [/quote]

Agreed. Insurance is not really the issue. If your French-registered car were to be being driven in the UK by a French resident there would be no issue regarding either registration or insurance.

[quote user="andyh4"]since the law is a peculiar UK interpretation of an EU directive.[/quote]

I would argue that the only thing that is peculiar to the UK is the fact that the UK does not allow any ANY time for you to do the re-registration. So, for example, France has the same law, but most importantly allows you 30 days in which to re-register your car. As mentioned by others, it does seem to be a law that is more honoured in the breach rather than the observance, and if you were to be stopped (there are a very few recorded cases!) my first instinct would be to go out and buy a Lottery ticket.

Re the idea of buying a UK-registered campervan (or capervan, depending on your intentions and typing accuracy) and re-registering it in France, have a search on previous threads re potential difficulties, particularly with gas installations. If in the long term you intend to be UK-resident, you might find it easier and cheaper to buy a UK-registered campervan and keep it on the UK register, with current UK MoT and UK insurance.

Note that the EU response to all this has been a proposal that all cars owned by a resident of a particular country must be registered in the owner's country of residence. Arrrrrrggggghhhhhh! (It's not in force yet - if ever!)

[andyh4]

[quote user="Pickles"][quote user="andyh4"]since the law is a peculiar UK interpretation of an EU directive.[/quote]

I would argue that the only thing that is peculiar to the UK is the fact that the UK does not allow any ANY time for you to do the re-registration. [/quote]

Which is the peculiar interpretation that I was referring to.

For the OP, we have friends who have a holiday home in France and regularly take their French registered car back to the UK. Their only restriction (in their eyes) is the 4 months max stay imposed by the insurance company.

[Malnoueans]

Thanks all for your help - and Angela particularly for referring me back to a long thread that gave me chapter and verse on the rules, ably condensed by Pickles into a few bullet points which said it all.

Husband has been in France this week and has bought the "capervan", so at least we now have the wheels. The French insurance broker claimed to have never heard of the law regarding re-registering of foreign vehicles by UK residents and tried to tell husband that he was wrong  - after all she had many British clients insured to drive their French registered vehicle on British roads! She took some convincing that just because she could insure a vehicle wouldn't actually make it legal on UK roads. In fact, I think she still thinks we are talking rubbish!

We have decided that we can't risk bringing the van across the channel, so will work around it. Maybe one day we will bring it across and do the re-registering - OR we may actually be bona-fide French residents at some point, in which case the problem goes away. In the meantime we will be heading into other European countries during the Summer, all perfectly legally. How bizarre that we can do that, but are not legal, even for an hour, if we were to bring the vehicle into the UK!!

[PaulT]

:Perhaps the reason is that, as a UK resident, it would be financially advantageous to me to have a French registered car and use it in both France and UK - it would save me £260 per annum Road Fund Licence.

[ventodue]

[quote user="PaulT"]:Perhaps the reason is that, as a UK resident, it would be financially advantageous to me to have a French registered car and use it in both France and UK - it would save me £260 per annum Road Fund Licence.[/quote]

That is EXACTLY the reason, Paul.  Think of the loss to the UK Exchequer if every UK resident was able to register his/her vehicle in some other European country where there was no road tax ....[:-))]

(In other words: it's a British problem, not a French one ...)

[AnOther]

[quote user="Loiseau"]I know from this forum that I m not allowed to drive my French-reg voiture secondaire in the UK, but my French insurer did assure me at the outset (before I was aware of said rule) that insurancewise it was ok.[/quote]As far as he's concerned and in French terms it would be but that's not the point, a UK registered vehicle driven in the UK MUST be insured by a member of the UK Motor Insurance Bureau and no French insurer is so French insurance is worthless for that purpose.

[quote user="Malnoueans"]The French insurance broker claimed to have

never heard of the law regarding re-registering of foreign vehicles by

UK residents and tried to tell husband that he was wrong  - after all

she had many British clients insured to drive their French registered

vehicle on British roads! She took some convincing that just because she

could insure a vehicle wouldn't actually make it legal on UK roads. In

fact, I think she still thinks we are talking rubbish![/quote]Precisely

why you cannot rely on what a broker or agent tells you !

[powerdesal]

The French insurance broker claimed to have never heard of the law regarding re-registering of foreign vehicles by UK residents and tried to tell husband that he was wrong - after all she had many British clients insured to drive their French registered vehicle on British roads! She took some convincing that just because she could insure a vehicle wouldn't actually make it legal on UK roads. In fact, I think she still thinks we are talking rubbish!

Her many British clients insured to drive their French registered vehicle on British roads could, in fact, be British people living in France. After all, we are British clients and our French registered vehicle is insured by a French company to drive on British roads. Perhaps the French insurance broker was meaning just that. It would be unrealistic to expect a French broker to have British residents as clients, they would insured by a British broker / Insurance Co surely.

We don't stop being ''British clients'' just because we are resident in France.