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Holiday home car: To buy or continue hiring?


Misty123
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I know this has been covered many times but having trawled the posts both with and without the search facility and I am still somewhat bemused and confused. I apologise for raising this yet again but we are looking into buying an old car because we thought this may be easier and cheaper than hiring but it seems that it is almost impossible to do this and stay within the law. I must have mis-understood somewhere along the line...

We are UK residents owning a holiday home in PO (66). 
We visit about 10 times a year for one or two weeks at a time.
We fly in and out of Girona Spain and drive into France.
The car will spend most of the time in a private car park in Spain  - but be used mostly on French roads.
It is not feasable to return the car to the UK for UK tax, MOT and insurance purposes.
We have a French address but we are not French residents.
We do not have a Spanish address.

It appears that:
We cannot use a UK registered vehicle as it is impractical to return it to the UK every 30 (or 90) days.
We cannot register in Spain - where it will be mostly kept,  because we have no Spanish address.  
We cannot register it in France because we are not technically French residents.

Presumably the French option is the closest, but if we ever needed to claim (touching wood), is it possible the Insurance company may still refuse the claim because we are non-residents? Would the fact that the car was kept outside France also invalidate the insurance in the same way it would be if it was UK registered with UK insurance? Is this is one of the things one is just not legally permitted to do?

On one hand we don't want to try to cheat the system or 'bend the rules' as we want to be legal and covered should the unthinkable happen, on the other hand, it has to be finantially and practically realistic as an alternative to hiring.[8-)] 

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Perhaps I am being very dense but surely if you own a house here in France you pay the taxes appropriate for the house ie taxe foncière and taxe d'habitation, also EDF bills, water bills and house insurance? So by virtue of all that you have an established identity here even though you are not resident. This, I would have thought, should be sufficient to enable you to buy and insure a car here - one which would only be used here and would not leave France.

Sue [8-)]

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There is nothing to stop you purchasing a car and registering in France using your holiday home address.Hundreds of people do just that .

The only difficulty I can see is that your French insurance coy may be unhappy that the car spends the majority of time in Spain.

I would seek clarification  that they would be ok with the senario you propose

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[quote user="spg"]

This, I would have thought, should be sufficient to enable you to buy and insure a car here - one which would only be used here and would not leave France.

Sue [8-)][/quote]

Why if it was fully insured and registered would it not be allowed to leave France like any other French car? Lots of British owned French registered cars come to Britain. A car surely only has to be legitimate in one country to be able to travel to other countries!

Ask Noel Edmonds [:D]

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  • We cannot use a UK registered vehicle as it is impractical to return it to the UK every 30 (or 90) days.
There are other possibilites for this option. THIS company for instance offer european insurance with the proviso that the vehicle is kept OUT of UK for 11 months out of 12. Since you would need to return it to UK annually for TAX/MOT then this might be a solution for you. Worth a phone call.

I agree with others that there is no reason whatsoever preventing you from registering and insuring a car in France although the Spanish angle might be prove a bit akward.

Re Noel Edmunds; does anybody know if anything ever came of his fleet managers alleged "error" [Www]

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Misty123

There is nothing to prevent you from buying an old French car to use on your visits to your holiday home.  You will be required to register as the new owner and, like everyone else in France, you do this using your French address.

You can also obtain a French insurance policy for your French registered car using your French address - there's no distinction for 'non residents'.  The policy will be valid for unrestricted foreign use, and provided the car is stored in a secure environment in Spain, then there should be no problem. 

 

 

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No you don't have to re-register it at all, its perfectly legal to use a UK registered car with no UK MOT or UK road tax on French roads[Www]

The rules are quite simple, UK registered - UK legal, Tax Insurance and MOT.  If French registered - French legal,  French Insurance and CT.

 As you are saying you cannot get it back to the UK for an MOT you have no choice but to register it in France......., not that you would know that now the second home owners have arrived for the holidays and the MOT failures and out of tax UK registered cars have come out of the barns and onto the roads of France again, you would think the idiots would at least remove the 2003 tax discs and at least display a GB plate wouldn't you.[blink]

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[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

Misty123

There is nothing to prevent you from buying an old French car to use on your visits to your holiday home.  You will be required to register as the new owner and, like everyone else in France, you do this using your French address.

You can also obtain a French insurance policy for your French registered car using your French address - there's no distinction for 'non residents'.  The policy will be valid for unrestricted foreign use, and provided the car is stored in a secure environment in Spain, then there should be no problem. 

 

 

[/quote]

 

Be carefull about insurance Our French insurance only covers us for three months in any insurance year for foreign use.(I do not know how they can tell if the car has been over into Spain or wherever for more than three months)

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[quote user="Boiling a frog"]I do not know how they can tell if the car has been over into Spain or wherever for more than three months[/quote]Dead easy, your ferry tickets.

If you had a bump in France or Spain or wherever then the first thing your insurer would want would be evidence of when you took the vehicle abroad and if you had complied with the terms of your cover in regard to allowable periods.

Never forget that the onus will ALWAYS be on YOU to prove your case, not them disprove it.

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[quote user="ErnieY"][quote user="Boiling a frog"]I do not know how they can tell if the car has been over into Spain or wherever for more than three months[/quote]Dead easy, your ferry tickets.

If you had a bump in France or Spain or wherever then the first thing your insurer would want would be evidence of when you took the vehicle abroad and if you had complied with the terms of your cover in regard to allowable periods.

Never forget that the onus will ALWAYS be on YOU to prove your case, not them disprove it.
[/quote]

 

I learn something new every day.

I did not realise that living in France with a French car I needed a ferry to get to Spain.

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To keep things in perspective, the OP is looking for a car which will spend most of it's time locked away in Spain, so he/she is unlikely to be investing a lot of money in it.  If that's the case, then why not just buy an old French car, take out third party cover (which, by law, must be unrestricted) and regard any potential accident/theft loss as an acceptable risk.

 

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Fair point BAF and I admit I glossed over the fact that you said "our French Insurance" [:$], however, the topic is the possibilty of keeping a UK reg car outside of UK and my response was relative to that.

I have to say though I'm surprised to hear that your insurer applies a restriction because as SD has said French policies normally do not. Did you negotiate this for a lower premium I wonder ?

In any case my other comment still holds true that the onus will ALWAYS be on YOU to prove your case, not them disprove it.

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[quote user="ErnieY"]Fair point BAF and I admit I glossed over the fact that you said "our French Insurance" [:$], however, the topic is the possibilty of keeping a UK reg car outside of UK and my response was relative to that.

I have to say though I'm surprised to hear that your insurer applies a restriction because as SD has said French policies normally do not. Did you negotiate this for a lower premium I wonder ?

In any case my other comment still holds true that the onus will ALWAYS be on YOU to prove your case, not them disprove it.

[/quote]

 

Perhaps they have tighten up in the last couple of years.

Many people have stated that they continue to drive a UK registered car for years in France with French assurance and a French CT however in the last couple of years I am aware that our assurers ,and some if not all others,will only give cover for perhaps a month or two months and insist that the car is reregistered in France.

I also enquired about taking the car to the UK and for how long I was allowed .

Five years ago there was a shrug of the shoulder  and no restriction was made.

Last year they stated quite emphatically 3 months.under comprehensive cover for any EU country outside France.

Perhaps it is a general restriction that most people are unaware of and it is only because I asked the specific question I received the answer.  

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[quote user="Boiling a frog"]Perhaps it is a general restriction that most people are unaware of and it is only because I asked the specific question I received the answer.  [/quote]Good point, if in doubt and all that. I suspect that a great many have absolutely no idea what their terms are simply because their documentation is all in French, fancy that [:-))]

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Why doesnt anybody just check their policy terms and conditions or is that too obvious?

My broker did the sharp intake of breath and said "pas plus de trente jours" whilst wagging his finger condescendingly yet the terms are quite explicit, cover (including breakdown) is pan -european without time restriction.

Editted

Ernie you answered my question before I got time to post it!

Personally I would not accept what others say (based often on their experience of UK insurers or worse hearsay) or even what my broker "thinks" as he has proved to be totally unreliable to date, when push comes to shove and you are pursuing a claim it is what is written in your contract of insurance that matters.

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Can I move the discussion on (or backwards) and ask a basic point:

I want to have a car at my holiday home in France (to save on the cost and hassle of hiring cars). I have a choice to either take a car from the UK and keep it in France from then onwards or to buy a car in France. If I take the UK car, what are the pros and cons of reregistering (and indeed must I re-register after a certain time?

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 If I take the UK car, what are the pros and cons of reregistering (and indeed must I re-register after a certain time?

This has been answered above, if you want to keep it on UK plates it must be UK legal taxed and MOt'd and you will find it hard to get insurance for a car that is in France all the time.  Realistic legal options are French car, or re-register UK car and make it French legal with CT, LHD headlights etc

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[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

Misty123

There is nothing to prevent you from buying an old French car to use on your visits to your holiday home.  You will be required to register as the new owner and, like everyone else in France, you do this using your French address.

You can also obtain a French insurance policy for your French registered car using your French address - there's no distinction for 'non residents'.  The policy will be valid for unrestricted foreign use, and provided the car is stored in a secure environment in Spain, then there should be no problem. 

 

 

[/quote]

 

THis man has got it right,i know loads that doing it.Also no road tax,got to be worth the time doing it.

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