Selling an English caravan in France

[Su]

Has anyone successfully managed to sell to new French owners?

We have people who want to buy our old van, but are struggling with documentation for Carte Grise.

We are being asked for a 'certificat de conformite europeen' which they say should have been given when we bought the van (15 years ago!). Have never heard of it! Is there a way round?

Su

[Bugsy]

Take it back to the UK and sell it. That is a lot less hassle.

[dave21478]

The certificate of conformity comes with the paperwork of new caravans, but as paperwork like this isnt needed in the uk, nothing like it was ever issued for older vans.

 

You could try contacting the manufacturer and asking if they can issue a certificate but I would be pretty surprised if you could get one for a van that age.

Without the right paperwork, the van is next to worthless in France so as said, I would return it to the UK to sell.

[LEO]

 

 

 

 English car  = English caravan

French car  = French caravan

Trying to mix the above can be a nightmare!

Also there are a lot of British people in France looking for an English reg caravan.

Try a more localised forum ie. angloinfo

kind regards,

Leo

[Sunday Driver]

Caravans and trailers are not yet subject to EU Whole Vehicle Type Approval, so EU certificates of conformity do not exist for them. 

The alternative is for the caravan manufacturer to have obtained individual national type approval for their vans in each country they commercially sold into.  As the UK manufacturers have historically not sold into the European market, then it's highly unlikely that your fifteen year old van has any form of foreign homologation paperwork.  In fact, EU standardisation on gas systems was only introduced a few years ago on all new vans.

To register your old van here, it will first need to pass a Bureau Veritas inspection for the gas and electricity systems (approx 200€ plus cost of new gas regulators and possibly safety cut-off valves, etc), followed by a DRIRE single vehicle approval inspection (87€ plus cost of extra running lights/reflectors).  For the SVA, you'll need to obtain technical data sheets concerning the chassis, braking system and towing hitch from the UK van manufacturer.  Registration fee for the carte grise is around 65€.

It's not impossible, but it's certainly a hassle, so you may wish to take the earlier advice and just ship it back to the UK for sale.

 

 

[freddy]

I agree with all the above it is possible but probably not worth the hassle. An acquaintance of mine was trying to reregister his caravan and having significant trouble – the first problem was that the approvers said the door was on the wrong side!! though they eventually let this through – the big problem was that the caravan had glass windows and they insisted that they must be Perspex (or possibly the other way round, I forget) but the manufacturer had never produced these so it was effectively impossible.

[maude]

door on the " wrong" side is not an issue.The glass v perspex windows  cant comment on,but look at the ancienne French caravans--many still have glass windows!Re registered my Luna caravan,no thanks to the makers,but twas a hassle due to lack of makers info.took about 8 months altogether.Still worth it when I have looked at French caravans!    Maude