Baware if you are driving on UK plates

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="pimpernel"]

Just to further this slightly for clarity's sake. Is it illegal for a French resident to drive an English registered car. ie Someone comes to visit and while out on day trips etc the driving is shared

[/quote]

No - providing the registered owner is present in the vehicle at the same time.

 

 

[pimpernel]

Thank you Sunday driver,both for your patience in answering me and for the benefit of your knowledge. Thank you to the other posters who answered.

[woolybanana]

So, if  my French family are visiting me in UK they can't borrow and use my car without my being there? Even if the insurance is ok?

And vice versa in France?

[Sunday Driver]

Yes they can - the same way as they can hire a car in the UK. 

That's a totally different scenario to pimpernel's.

 

[allanb]

A variation on Woolybanana's question: I use my French car to go to a family reunion in Britain.  My son who lives in the USA can borrow it, but my other son, who lives in Britain, can't (unless I'm with him).  Is this really the case?

(edited) SD: I posted this before I saw your reply to Woolybanana - I think you've answered my question also, i.e. either of them can borrow it.

[fussy]

Just to add to this 'can't drive on uk plates for long' an english lady in our village has lived here for eleven years and still drives with english plates, its her only car, so can anyone suggest how she has gotten away with it for so long. She is a bit hoity toity, so I may get a mind your own business if I asked her.

[woolybanana]

Perhaps if you asked her in a spirit of " Can you help me do this too?" and not "You are breaking the rules and letting the side down", she might cooperate and even offer you a drink.

[Patf]

Back to the horsebox story - we had a horsebox - towable - which we used to carry most of our stuff when we moved here. Registered with our english car no. first then changed to daughters car registration. It was quite old so impossible to adapt to french standards. After moving we rarely used it but had no problem getting it insured from time to time for a month or so. We recently gave it to friends who have a horse, who again managed to get it insured for a few days at a time. Hope they don't have any problems, after reading this thread.  

[pugwash]

It's not a matter of belief, we all believe and can see he wrote it, but we can all see in these threads, and I can add to the evidence that you CAN get French insurance for a UK plated car, (I haven't got it, but I was offered it and chose to buy a French car instead and disposed of the UK car),  just because "Honest John" says so in the Daily Telegraph (my normal first choice of newspaper so this is not a dig at that) doesn't make it right. That would be like saying that Jeremy Clarkson is an ideal role model for any driver. Just go on further down the same page and see his (Honest Johns) views on older drivers and Italians !

[pugwash]

Sorry I seem to out of synch, my pages got mixed up I have replied to an earlier comment.

[Chief]

[quote user="bixy"]She had neither MOT or tax. I think the length of time she was driving this car in France was something like  five years! I'm feeling particularly righteous about this issue at the moment as I'm going though the process of immatriculating two cars - very expensive and at times difficult.

Patrick
[/quote]

A simple change in UK law would suffice here.  You cannot get a tax disc without a current MOT certificate which the post office check.  The system is also linked online so you cannotn purchase tax online without an MOT being registered on the system.  Is it too much to ask that the govt simply link the insurance system into the same setup, and allow you to purchase the job lot through teh same outlets.  Seems like a loophole that is easily closed, but as usual, more money for the govt in fines etc if they allow the loophole to exist.

On the issue of insurance companies. I am insured, taxed, mot'd, and AA'd but i would still expect the companies to do all they could to qwriggle out of a claim, and maybe tahts also part of teh problem.  If the insurers cannot act with decency and honour, many people wonder why they should.

[juicy]

Don't come to Spain, it's even worse here.
Juicy

[Hagar]

[quote user="Chief"]

 The system is also linked online so you cannotn purchase tax online without an MOT being registered on the system.  Is it too much to ask that the govt simply link the insurance system into the same setup[/quote]

They already do this

rgds

Hagar

[Ron Avery]

Someone suggested was it Quillan?  that it was down to laziness that Brits did not register their cars if they bothered to CT and insure them, but as many of us know, there is actually a darker and more dishonest side to many of the UK plated cars.

There are those cars, and many of them, that are not taxed, Mot’d or insured in any country and these are left at airports, ports and holiday homes where the owners use them as transport whilst in France at their maison secondaires, we have all seen them.  These cars are used in complete contravention of French law to save the owners having to buy a car in France or hire one.

 Then there are the second group, those who might CT the car or perhaps not, but have not registered it or insured in France, but why not?  Because they don’t want anyone to know that they actually live in France. 

They are often on local government/civil service pensions so pay no income tax in France or have a bank account in France that shows any regular income and so avoid any other form of social charges on savings accounts or pay health care charges by keeping up a pretence of not actually living in France.  There are a few who keep up this pretence to collect Disability Living Allowance based on a UK address and get free health care in the UK should they need it based on a family address.  To keep up the pretence they don’t register their cars as it would start questions being asked about whether they are actually resident in France or not. Sound like anyone you know?

[Bob T]

Watch it Ron, I have a government pension! Both bikes and the car are French legal, and I do declare my pension on my French tax return as is the legal requirement. I don't pay French tax on the pension, but have no choice in that, and I would rather pay French tax on it than UK tax.

[Sunday Driver]

Yes, but those amongst us who spend most of their time 5,000 feet up in the air (outside French territorial boundaries?) get special exemption from residency and French tax......[:D]

 

 

[bigears]

hi

Ron, try relaxing a bit, enjoy your life here in france, don't let the 'problem' of all these illegal uk reged cars consume you.  The french authorities don't seem to be bothered about it at the moment, but perhaps they will in time. 

[Ron Avery]

Bigears

I have no problem with the cars that are Mot'd and insured,  its the hundreds of others that bother me and should also bother you, but, then again you don't live here do you[Www]

[bigears]

ron

as I have said before, it doesn't bother me and here it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. I'm so busy enjoying renovating my maison secondaire in the beautiful french countryside, but as you say I don't live here and I have to return to that horribly overcrowded country of my birth in 13 days time.  I cannot stay here for more than 182 days as someone might 'shop' me.

[Jonzjob]

But bigears if you were to spend the alloted time here to be a French resident then I expect that you would declair it. So what's to shop?

I also suspect that if you were ever clouted by one of these clowns that do drive their unregistered/taxed/MOTd cars then you would see red too if the insurance said "Sorry mate, nowt to do with us" in the local French dialect??? Peut etra? It wouldn't matter if you were here full time or on holiday for a week then!

I love my life here AND I enjoy it, but as I have said before, if I am ever clipped by one of these loving, careing, illegal drivers then the pattern would change rapidly! Until then I will carry on loving the life here, full time!

[AnOther]

bigears,

You must be aware that there are a raft or criteria which determine one's residency of which the 183 day thing is but one and not definitive in it's own right.

I don't know your specific circumstances of course but if your house is a "Mason Secondaire" and you are just flitting back and forth renovating it I doubt anybody could shop you for anything, 183 days or otherwise.

Sarkozy has done away with anonymous letters of denounciation anyway hasn't he [:D]

 

[pimpernel]

Alright,how does this work. You're a brit living in France. Cars are all legal, CT'd insured etc but you keep a car garaged in the UK for the times you have to go back. Should this car be French or English registered. If it is English registered ,howif you haven't got an English address.? Are you allowed to drive it in France.? If it is French registered how do you keep it in England.?

Probably obvious to most of you .[8-)]

[allanb]

[quote user="pimpernel"]Alright,how does this work. You're a brit living in France. Cars are all legal, CT'd insured etc but you keep a car garaged in the UK for the times you have to go back. Should this car be French or English registered. If it is English registered ,howif you haven't got an English address.? Are you allowed to drive it in France.? If it is French registered how do you keep it in England.?

Probably obvious to most of you.[/quote]It isn't obvious to me, and I would also be interested to know. 

If I had to guess, I'd say that registration depends on residence, i.e. the car should be French-registered.  I wouldn't see any insurance problem in this, as long as your French insurer knew the facts.

I wouldn't like to depend on a guess, though.

[Quillan]

[quote user="pimpernel"]

Alright,how does this work. You're a brit living in France. Cars are all legal, CT'd insured etc but you keep a car garaged in the UK for the times you have to go back. Should this car be French or English registered. If it is English registered ,howif you haven't got an English address.? Are you allowed to drive it in France.? If it is French registered how do you keep it in England.?

Probably obvious to most of you .[8-)]

[/quote]

This looks like somebody who is trying to 'bend' the rules a bit but anyway.

The flaws in this are easy and the two big ones are firstly that you can't have a car registered in the UK unless you have an address at some place or another and garages don't normally (to the best of my knowledge) have official address's. The second is that, as already said many times before, all five policies that I looked at require you to be a UK resident.

Even if you overcome the above or simply lie you then have the cost of renting a garage, tax, insurance and the possible hassle of getting a MOT (in as much as you will have to go back to specifically to get the MOT and go to a Post Office to get a tax disk as the postal method will only send the disk to the address where the car is registered). Then take in to account you have to get from the airport to the car. The best solution would be to simply rent a car which costs (I used travelsupermarket.com) £99 for 7 days, that's £14 per day. I think you would find that it would be the cheapest way plus the car is waiting for you at the airport. I forgot to say you also need to take in to account the annual service costs and deprecation.

All in all simply not worth the grief.

Alternativly you could buy a car for a member of your family and simply get them to put you on their insurance and borrow it when in the UK.

[bigears]

hi

If you are french resident (uk person), it seems you cannot insure a uk reged car at you maison secondaire in the uk with a uk based leading insurance company.  I asked admiral about this and they said to have uk insurance on a uk reged car (based in uk), you have to be resident in uk for 9 months a year.  This seem daft to me as it seems to be a legitimate thing to want to do.  Have a look at the below e-mails

hi
before I go for a quote on line, can you tell me if your normal car policy will cover me. I am a uk national, I live between france and the uk. I have a house in both countries. I want to keep a uk registered car at my uk address and use the cheap airlines for travel backwards and forwards to the uk, rather than cross the channel in my french reg car. For tax purposes I am resident in france as I spend a little more of the year in france. Can you cover me?

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your enquiry with Admiral. Unfortunately we only cover people who are UK resident for at least 9 months of the year, with some exceptions E.g. Forces. You may wish to try "Call Connection" based in Ipswich on 0845 155 6204.
Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information.

Yours sincerely
Giles Henry
Admiral SCR

We are actually uk resident (the above was done just to gather information on the subject, when I had nothing better to do one day)  living half the year in france and the other half in the uk.  As it is illegal (uk rules, not french insurance rules, I believe) to use our french reged car in the uk,  I am in the process of buying a uk reged for our main residence in the uk.   Logically a car should be reged and insured for the country it is based in.