Selling a car in France

[krusty]

Is the seller obliged to put a new CT on the car ?

eg even if the existing CT is 7 month or 19 month old .

What I am trying to say is it enforcible , is there any fines involved if the buyer is happy to take a car with a CT older than 6 month ?

[dave21478]

Not at all. The only thing thats obligatory as fas as CT goes is that it needs to be less than 6 months old for someone to register the car in their name. As far as the actual sale goes, whether the car has an in-date CT is fairly irrelevant and the buyer and seller usualy come to an agreement about who will do the CT. A seller will normally put the car through CT to make it more attractive to buyers, but its certainly not obligatory.

For example, my niece is looking to buy her first car here. We went to see a wee 1993 Opel Corsa yesterday. Its advertised "vendu dans l`etat" because the CT is out of date. After looking it over,  I said we would buy it if the seller put it through CT this week, rather than haggling more cash off the price, which was pretty reasonable. (reasonable for France, still over double what the same car would cost in uk, but thats anoter matter.[:@] )

[gosub]

I disagree, a CT less than 6 months old is a legal requirement unless it's sold to a car dealer/garage, It may not always be done this way, if the buyer and seller agree that the buyer will obtain the new CT before registering the vehicle. However  the buyer will always have a good claim for his money back, if he finds any hidden defects if it's done this way.

[dave21478]

I would be curious to know where you get the information from. as far as I am aware, the CT is nothing to do with the sale, its only required for registration in the new owners name.

A quick scan of ww.leboncoin.fr will show hundreds of cars for sale every week without CT. I find it hard to believe they are all breaking any law.

[gosub]

Well a quick Google shows this for a start.

http://www.caradisiac.com/php/auto_pratique/pr_droits/ct_achat_voiture.php

Or here, http://www.utac-otc.com/fr/ctvl/vente.asp#obligation

[Cat]

 

Vente d'un véhicule d'occasion

En cas de vente d'un véhicule de plus de 4 ans, le vendeur doit remettre à l'acquéreur, avant la conclusion du contrat de vente, le procès verbal de la visite technique périodique, établi depuis moins de 6 mois. 

 

Source

[Cerise]

I am surprised by the information as I sold my old car without a controle technique before Christmas.  I asked the Préfecture and the Controle Technique centre we use if this was OK and both said yes provided paperwork clearly marked 'Vendue dans l'état et sans controle technique'.  French acquaintances said the same. The new owners subsequently did a bit of work, had controle done (in another department)  and registered the car without any problems. 

[wenroy]

I am confused. I thought you had a month to register a car after you had purchased it . To register the car the ct needs to be no more than 6 months old. A lot of the cars on Leboncoin say " ct ok " but do not have the 18 months remaining on the ct that is required. So , to me, any car with less than 18 months has no effective ct as I need to get a new one done to register it. I would never have dreamed of buying a car in England with no MOT but it seems the norm here. Am I missing something ? . Do the French not bother to register their cars in the month or can you, in fact, register with less than 18 months. When I question the sellers about this they seem confused as to why I am asking.