new registration style plates

[partout]

We have just bought a 1952 citroen traction, not en collection,  the car is registered in 33, has the original shaped plate on the rear drivers side back wing and the curved shaped plate on the front, both of these have painted numbers on, when we come to register the car in 47 will we get the new style registration numbers  or will they issue the old fashioned style in keeping with the car.

It seems that in France they change their minds quite frequently as to what style plates they are using.... or am I wrong here....

[Gardian]

Some good French friends of ours have a '51 Traction, matriculated in '70', where they used to live. They've been down here for nearly 10 yrs, but whether classic cars are exempt or he simply hasn't bothered to re-register it, I'm unsure.

I have a feeling that the new regs don't require you to re-register, but SD or someone else will know for sure.

They went to the 'National / International Meet' at Le Mans last weekend.  Did you go?  They were telling me that the 2012 meeting will be held in Salisbury!

[Clair]

[quote user="partout"]We have just bought a 1952 citroen traction, not en collection,  the car is registered in 33, has the original shaped plate on the rear drivers side back wing and the curved shaped plate on the front, both of these have painted numbers on, when we come to register the car in 47 will we get the new style registration numbers  or will they issue the old fashioned style in keeping with the car.

It seems that in France they change their minds quite frequently as to what style plates they are using.... or am I wrong here....

[/quote]

The size of the number plate is regulated (details here).

The recent changes in legislation allow for a dept number to be shown on the reg plate. This dept number can be chosen by the owner and does not have to have any relation to where the car is based or where the owner lives.

[Polly]

Is the car on CG Collection or CG Normale?

If on collection, you can keep old-style plates (with your new reg N°), if CG Normale you should have modern plates.... but doubtful if you would 'get caught' and fined, so many classic cars are on old-fashioned plates and plod generally turns a blind eye.

The new SIV rules apply to second-hand cars from 15 October 2009. FVE give a dinky table summarising the situation post 15 October 2009 concerning the new N°s and requirements for Controle technique etc. at http://www.ffve.org/?option=com_content&view=article&layout=simple&id=60&menu_id=106&Itemid=51

[partout]

Thanks for the info,

We are in the process of buying the car, we fly down and collect the car on the 3 sep, and are driving it back to the uk, we will take 3-4days to drive up to Dieppe.

Gardian, no we were driving north with the rest of france on the motorway, we didn't know about the meet, but thanks for the info, I am sure that hubby will check the next one out, but I hope that we will be living permanently in 47 by then.

Polly, Do you know of the possibility that old cars need not be re registered, this is the first that we've heard?

[AnOther]

If you are driving it to UK I wonder do you know that technically, as a UK resident, you are not allowed to drive it there ?

As far as number plates go in France I think Polly is right, on old vehicles such as that nobody is really interested in what sort of plate you have and a good number of the cars of similar age which regularly turn up on my local runs have them hand painted on bumpers etc. One or two still even sport their original UK numbers even though they are French owned and have been for years.

I don't know where you have heard that old cars need not be registered but it's not true.

[partout]

Hi

i thought it a little odd but was only querying an earlier thread,

driving in the uk, no problem for on french plates, as we will have full insurance cover, we had no problem with our american registered car that we brought in from Washington state, it was eventually registered in Uk as will be the citroen.

[AnOther]

[quote user="partout"]driving in the uk, no problem for on french plates, as we will have full insurance cover, we had no problem with our american registered car that we brought in from Washington state, it was eventually registered in Uk as will be the citroen.[/quote]It's nothing to do with whether you have insurance or not.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVehicle/ImportingAndExportingAVehicle/DG_10014623

See under European Union vehicles where it clearly states:

'UK residents are not

allowed to use a foreign registered vehicle on UK roads.'

If you had 'no problem' with a US car it's probably just because you were lucky in that you didn't get stopped or have an accident [;-)]

[Polly]

[quote user="partout"]

Polly, Do you know of the possibility that old cars need not be re registered, this is the first that we've heard?

[/quote]

It's false, any vehicle has to be re-registered in the new owner's name with whatever reg N° is allocated to it, either under the existing system or the new one

Possibly the confusion has arisen from the fact that under the old rules, change of ownership within a dept did not give rise to a change in reg N°, but that applied to all vehicles, not just old ones

[partout]

Thanks

AnOther and Polly

[andyps]

[quote user="AnOther"]from an earlier post[/quote]

That law is unworkable though, at least in the short term. If a UK citizen bought a car in the EU and drove it home they would have to have it trailered from the port. When it was beneficial to purchase cars from other EU countries for use in the UK it was common to drive the car for a few days in the UK with the original registration whilst going through the registration process.

There are also many examples of motoring journalists driving EU non UK, but EU, registered vehicles in the UK for road test purposes, just have a look in any of the magazines.

[AnOther]

Unworkable ?

Inconvenient perhaps and possibly discretionary in genuine circumstances where the pi** isn't being taken but that doesn't stop it being the law. I am neither defending nor criticising it, merely advising of it's existence [;-)]

In the case of importing new cars from abroad there is a specific DVLA procedure outlined HERE where it states that such vehicles should only be driven directly from the pick up point to the buyers home and actually advises transportation instead.

I don't know how the media work it, maybe there is some exception for dealers, I couldn't say.

[glacier1]

hi partout,

what kind of american vehicle did you import, just out of curiousity.

[andyps]

OK - unworkable is not the correct word, but the fact that there is an exception, albeit one recommended not to use, shows that there is a fundamental flaw in the law.

Ultimately, I can see no logic behind it, other than to stop UK citizens driving a car on which the UK government receive no road tax, despite receiving all the fuel duty.

As an example of why it is unjust in the European Union if I as a UK resident spent 5 months of the year in the UK, five months in France and 2 in the US, and during those two month I left my car in France. By law that car would have to be registered in France as it spent 7 month there, meaning I could not use it in the UK for the 5 months I spent there. When the law is an ass it tends to get ignored, as I suspect may often happen with this particular law.

[AnOther]

Don't know what you've done to the formatting andy but the page has expanded to 2x width now !

I hear what you're saying but IMO it's entirely logical and also very simple, if UK residents were allowed to freely drive vehicles from any country will nilly then there's nothing to prevent them flouting the law with complete impunity, it's called anarchy!

It already happens of course with foreign cars with foreign drivers who, unless they are actually apprehended breaking the law, are indeed effectively immune from the consequences of their actions but that will slowly change as the EU becomes more joined up and databases are merged, perhaps then the rule will be relaxed but I think that day's a very long way off yet.

The sort of situation you outline would likely apply to very tiny minority of people for whom it could be an inconvenience but the law cannot always cater for every conceivable set of circumstances. The perfect law has yet to written!

FWIW the same rule also applies in Frence which means that all those UK émigrés still driving about on UK plates are de facto breaking the law each and every time they take to the road [;-)]

[Pickles]

The ONLY derogations from the prohibition on driving non-UK-registered vehicles in the UK are:

1) in the case of a foreign-registered hire car which has been provided as a replacement for your own car whilst your own car is being repaired following an accident whilst abroad, and then only for the duration of the repair.

2) driving a foreign-registered vehicle owned by a foreign-resident member of your family WITH THAT PERSON IN THE CAR.

Either of these conditions is going to be pretty rare (hence my previous comments about the only exceptions being circumstances that are very unlikely to obtain). Otherwise, you are not even allowed to drive a foreign-registered personal import from the port of entry to your house: it has to be either trailered or else it can be delivered by being driven on the road but only either by a foreign-resident driver or by a UK-resident driver using trade plates.

When you see a foreign-registered car in a motoring magazine that appears to be being driven in the UK by a UK-resident driver, I understand that it is actually (and has to be) on UK trade plates (if it is not being driven by a foreign-resident reporter - eg Georg Karcher - or else being driven on private land - eg Millbrook or an airfield). You will not see the trade plates in the pictures because the editors don't want them to appear on screen/in the magazine.

The simple issue is this: if, as a UK resident, you decide to drive a non-UK registered car on UK roads, you are breaking the law. The chances of being caught may not be high, but if you are, then the car can be (and has in cases that have been reported before) seized at the roadside and held until such time as you register the car in the UK or can make other arrangements which are to the satisfaction of the authorities that the car will be immediately and legally transported to be exported. No loop-holes, no get-out clauses, no period of grace (which is what you have in France), nothing to do with insurance, just the country of residence of the driver. 

Regards

Pickles

[allanb]

[quote user="Pickles"]The ONLY derogations from the prohibition on driving non-UK-registered vehicles in the UK are:

1) in the case of a foreign-registered hire car which has been provided as a replacement for your own car whilst your own car is being repaired following an accident whilst abroad, and then only for the duration of the repair.

2) driving a foreign-registered vehicle owned by a foreign-resident member of your family WITH THAT PERSON IN THE CAR.[/quote]

Some time ago I raised this question with the DVLA because I thought my son (a UK resident) might need to borrow my French-registered car briefly during a family visit to the UK.  The DVLA said no, as Pickles would have predicted. 

However, I later queried it again as a result of seeing an EU Commission statement (posted on this forum, but I can't remember by whom - thanks anyway!)  I wrote:

Thank you for your reply.  However, I have subsequently come across a statement by the Directorate-General, Taxation and Customs Union, which appears to qualify this prohibition.  The document reference is (TAXUD/255/02) and the following quotation is from page 16:

Here again, however, the prohibition has to be interpreted reasonably.

One cannot prohibit a holder of this exemption from carrying out the routine tasks of daily life or responding to duly substantiated exceptional circumstances. For instance, the Commission considers that the prohibition on lending such a car does not apply when the holder is on board but the car is being driven by a resident of the Member State of temporary "importation". Neither can one treat as prohibited lending a situation where a resident of one Member State, temporarily visiting his family or friends in another Member State, allows a member of the family or a friend to make occasional use of the car.

(my emphasis)

I pointed out to them that this last sentence exactly describes the situation I was asking about.

It took them two months to reply, by which time the need had passed.  Their reply made no comment on the quoted statement, and didn't add anything to what they had said before.

So what's the value of statements by EU institutions?  If they don't mean anything, why do we pay for them?

[partout]

Glacier

imported a Left Hand Jeep Grand Cherokee

[AnOther]

Alan, is THIS the document you were thinking of.

See 2/3 down under

RIGHTS YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF WHEN YOU TAKE UP RESIDENCE IN ANOTHER EU COUNTRY

 then

TEMPORARY USE OF A MOTOR VEHICLE

[allanb]

[quote user="AnOther"]Alan, is THIS the document you were thinking of.[/quote]Apparently not.  In fact, the bit I think you're referring to would confirm the DVLA's position:

Moreover, it is forbidden to drive a vehicle registered abroad in the

country in which you have your main residence (though EU countries are

free to apply more liberal rules). This means that you cannot sell,

hire out or even lend your vehicle when you are using it temporarily in

another Member State and, by the same token, you cannot purchase, hire

or borrow (and drive) a vehicle bearing foreign plates in your country

of residence.

But as far as I can see that's not an official statement, only a commentary.  What I'd like to find out is whether the Commission statement that I quoted is recognized by the authorities in the UK, and if not, why not. 

As I said, the immediate need has gone in my case, but it could happen again.

[AnOther]

Gawd it's hard work ploughing through EU sites !

Some relevant stuff HERE

[allanb]

[quote user="AnOther"]Gawd it's hard work ploughing through EU sites ![/quote]Especially  when you don't know whether the UK authorities will take any notice of the statements you find...

[AnOther]

You're into a whole different sphere now [:-))]