Registering or importing a vehicle and the 1 month rule?

[joidevie]

I've had some fantastic advice and responses on this forum to some recent questions.. Many thanks to everyone who helped [;-)]

I was now interested in how the 1 month rule to register a vehicle applies to imported vehicles?

Does this apply only to 'Residents of France' ? Or, as in my case, still a UK resident, are things different?

I was planning to take a vehicle over to France next week (bought in the UK, with Spanish Immatriculation)  and have it re-registered as soon as possible. However, there may well be a delay in obtaining a 'Certificat de Conformité' (possibly a couple of weeks), and I'm only over for 10 days..

Can I get the car over there and park it in the garage and deal with the paperwork on a later trip a month later? My French insurance are happy to cover the car on the way over once the vehicle has been purchased, but are there going to be complications if there is a delay of an additional month with paperwork with the prefecture, insurance etc?

It's also another hassle that you cannot now even have a CT done without a "Certificat de Conformité" which loses yet more time in my case..

Many thanks if anyone has any insights..

[EuroTrash]

I think you're asking somebody to show you a path through a swamp where no path exists.

Residents of France must register their vehicles here within one month. If you are not a resident of France then strictly speaking you can't register a car in France. A car that spends more than 6 months in France must be registered here. It's just random rules really.

In practical terms, it's between you and your insurance company. Some don't care a button one way or the other, some are strict and play by the rules but even then, as long as you can convince them that you're doing your best, they're usually reasonable. You may find the first insurance sticker they issue is for one month and you have to go back when that expires and explain what the delay is before they'll give you another one for another month. It's not something to lose sleep over, cross the bridges when you get to them.

[AnOther]

I believe I answered this question in your other thread and it falls under EU rules not French.

As a non resident you can keep a foreign registered car in another EU country for up to 6 months in any 12, the proviso being that it is maintained in a road legal state in it's country of registration. Beyond that it must be registered or removed.

In light of comments in the other thread I will leave it to others to expand on that in relation to the Spanish car you are buying in UK, i.e. by buying it as you are does it remain road legal in Spain ?

Note that despite what some seem to believe 6 months in any 12 does not mean that you can pop across a border somewhere and reset the 6 months !

These rules are not random but the observance and/or enforcement of them most certainly is so in that sense I agree with ET that they are more theory than practice.

[joidevie]

OK.. Many thanks.

Much as I expected.. Rules, hoops and merry go rounds  [;-)]

When this is all over I'll come back and post an update on everything..

[powerdesal]

''If you are not a resident of France then strictly speaking you can't register a car in France.''

Not true EuroTrash.

As non-residents we had our car registered in France for almost 4 years before taking up residence.

It does mean that you can't take it back to UK as it's not legal for a UK resident to drive a foreign registered car ( I think) but if the car is staying in France for use when you visit then there is no problem.

[EuroTrash]

I said 'strictly speaking'.

I know you CAN - I had a car registered in France while I was still resident in the UK.

But 'strictly speaking', according to EU law, you can only register a car in your country of residence. I quote:

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/vehicles/registration/formalities/index_en.htm:

<

You are not usually allowed to register your car in a country where you have a secondary residence or holiday house.>>

However I note they have added the word 'usually', which didn't used to be there I don't think, and I have also read that they are planning to change the rules to allow people more leeway.

And as you say there seems to be no problem as far as France is concerned - but it's always as well to be aware of what the various laws say.

[AnOther]

[quote user="EuroTrash"]I have also read that they are planning to change the rules to allow people more leeway.[/quote]

See Article 9 para 1

Also this is of interest for the future.

[Pickles]

[quote user="AnOther"][quote user="EuroTrash"]I have also read that they are planning to change the rules to allow people more leeway.[/quote]

See Article 9 para 1

Also this is of interest for the future.

[/quote]

Thanks for posting the link: as previously discussed, reading the proposed rules it seems that the new rules will outlaw the permanent basing of a car in a country in which the car owner is not resident UNLESS that car is brought back to the owner's country of residence to comply with MoT inspection requirements.

[powerdesal]

Those new rules will cause some serious confusion.

If you have a car, in France, and registered in France, it cannot be taken back to (say) UK unless you are a French resident because it will have French number plate / carte gris and hence cannot be used on UK roads by a UK resident. Neither will it be liable for a UK MoT inspection ( or vehicle tax) because it will no longer be a UK registered car.

However, if as a non-resident you leave a UK registered car in France, it has to be UK road legal which means current MoT, tax and insurance. If you are French resident you cannot continue to have a UK registered car because the law says it has to be re-registered in France within ????months / weeks.

The existing rules are not difficult to comply with although a number of UK ''immigrants'' to France seem reluctant to do so.

note: I do not use the term ''expats'', we are immigrants.

[EuroTrash]

The trouble is that there are certain perfectly reasonable things that people want to do, that you according to the existing rules you can't - like, keep a car at your holiday home in France when you live in the UK. You can't leave a UK reg car here because after 6 months in France the car has to be re-registered here, but you cant have a French reg car because you can only register a car in your country of residence and France isn't your country of residence. So according to the letter of the law, you can't do it. How stupid is that. Of course you can do it and people do do it and this seems to have been recognised in the new proposals.

[AnOther]

The bottom line in France is if you have a provable address here, and that can be a holiday home, a rented property, or even a friends home if they attest that it is your address too when you are in France, then resident or not you can register a car in exactly the same way as an French person would, nobody asks the question 'are you French resident' !

[Pickles]

[quote user="EuroTrash"]The trouble is that there are certain perfectly reasonable things that people want to do, that you according to the existing rules you can't - like, keep a car at your holiday home in France when you live in the UK. You can't leave a UK reg car here because after 6 months in France the car has to be re-registered here, but you cant have a French reg car because you can only register a car in your country of residence and France isn't your country of residence. So according to the letter of the law, you can't do it. How stupid is that. Of course you can do it and people do do it and this seems to have been recognised in the new proposals.[/quote]

ET, a UK resident can keep a French-registered car at his/her French holiday home: we have been through this on innumerable times in the past and the links to the relevant legislation are in previous threads for all to see and discuss if they so wish. As you say, it is true that the UK-resident can drive his/her French-registered car anywhere except in the UK. This doesn't arise in analogous circumstances for residents of certain other nations because their countries offer a leeway in terms of a time limit to re-register, which the UK does not. That's the UK's problem.

The new proposals, by simplifying the rules, seem to actually outlaw the ownership by a "normal" UK resident (ie someone who is not a transfrontaliere worker or employed by a foreign company) of a foreign-registered car. Thus, someone who has a holiday home in the south of France or Spain who wants to base a car there (because it is a pain in the backside to drive up and down) would have to register that car in the UK and fulfil all the UK registration, insurance and MoT requirements - ie they will have to bring the car back to the UK once per year because they cannot have the MoT carried out abroad. I'm glad we're getting rid of our French-reg car!

Equally, the new proposals will render completely legal a practice that is being used in France and elsewhere to evade fixed radar speeding tickets, parking tickets and the like: ie to own a car via a foreign-registered company, preferably one registered in Estonia (or Lithuania - can't remember the specifics any more) where the ownership of the company is kept secret. The company has a service office address but speeding tickets etc just go into a black hole.