Please settle an argument !!

[Mayennaise]

Not us of course, as we own a french registered car - but is this legal over here (in France!):

To have a car with British registration plates, french insurance and french CT, no British 'in date' tax disc displayed????

We keep saying it isn't legal but the owners swear it is!

[cooperlola]

For about a month, if that!  Sunday Driver will settle this.

[Cassis]

To save SD having to repeat it, here are the rules - taken from the sticky at the top of the forum.  Acknowledgment to SD (though I think some of the rest of us can also recite it as catechism now).

If you are resident in France, you have one month in which to import your UK car and register it with your prefecture.

If you car is of "standard" EU manufacture (ie, not a Japanese/US grey import) then you'll need to sort out the following in order to register your car in France

Export Declaration:

Fill in the tear-off export declaration slip from your V5C

registration document and send it to the DVLA at Swansea. Retain the

V5C as you'll need it to register here.  If you've any time left on

your tax disc, you can send it back as well and request a refund of any

expired excise duty.

VAT Paid certificate (quittus fiscal):

Visit your local Hotel des Impots and ask them for a quittus fiscal

certificate.  You'll need to take along your V5C, original

invoice/receipt (though for older cars, they don't usually ask for it)

and a utility bill.  The certificate is free and incorporates your

authority to drive your UK car on its foreign plates for a month whilst

you arrange registration.

Type approval (certificat de conformite):

If its a recent car, then it's normal to find a copy of

the manufacturer's certificate of conformity inside the owners

manual/service book.  If its an older car, then you'll need to write to

the manufacturer and ask them for one. There's normally a 100-130 euro

fee for this although some will issue them for free.  Alternatively,

you can apply to the DRIRE (Dept of Industry) for an attestation

d'identite.  Download an application form (with english instructions)

from HERE

and post it off with a copy of your V5C to your local DRIRE office. 

They'll check their database of type approved vehicles and post you an

attestation certificate.  Cost is 67,38 euros.

Controle Technique:

If your car is 4 years old or more, take it for a CT test.  You'll

need to change the headlamps for right hand dipping ones (cost up to

200 euros - try a scrapyard).  You'll also need to produce your V5C. 

The CT lasts for 2 years and costs 56,00 euros.  Retests on failed

items are usually free. The certificate is called a proces-verbal.

Visit your local prefecture and fill in a demande de certificate

d'immatriculation.  Take it to the counter and hand it over together

with your certificat de conformite/attestation d'identite, quittus

fiscal, proces-verbal de controle technique, V5C registration document,

invoice/receipt, passport and a utility bill.  After they've checked

everything, you'll be given a slip of paper which you hand in at the

caisse together with the fee (credit cards accepted).  Fees are based

on a sliding scale depending on age of vehicle and its fiscal power

rating. You can find a fee chart HERE . Once you've paid, they'll issue you with a new registration document (carte grise). 

Now take the carte grise to a cordonniere (key cutting/handbag shop

usually situated inside the foyer of a hypermarket) and he'll make you

up a set of plaques for about 20 euros.  Don't forget to ask him for

some rivets - screws are illegal here.

Finally, organise yourself some french insurance cover, stick their green insurance vignette on the inside of your windscreen.

If your car is a "grey" Japanese import, then the process is more complex and costly and outside the scope of this response.

[Mayennaise]

Hah!!!!! Isn't it nice to be proved correct!!! I keep telling them but they won't have it!!. Why have we been stopped by the gendarmes three times in our french bought, french registered car for a check of the paperwork but they have never been stopped!!!  Must be ***'s law!!

[Ron Avery]

In a nutshell, it must either be legal in France registered, insured, and CT'd or legal in the UK, MOT'd and taxed,  not a mixture of the two.  Yes you do wonder why these people never get stopped!!

[Sunday Driver]

Mayennaise

If your friends are resident in France and have a UK registered car, then it'll make a nice place for their chickens to live in because it's illegal for them to drive a foreign registered car on the French roads without registering it here.  It doesn't matter how many CT certificates or MOT's are in the glove box or tax discs stuck on the screen.  It's a foreign registered car - full stop.

They'll find out soon enough when their insurance company write to them insisting they re-register immediately otherwise cover will be withdrawn......

 

[Cassis]

I know our insurers wrote to us asking for the Carte Grise after we had been here 6 months but is the insurance company under any obligation to do so, do you know?

[Tony F Dordogne]

We know of a couple who have been here for four years now, live here fulltime, registered for tax etc still running round in their UK registered car - it's returned to the UK on a regular basis to keep it within the out of country rules, taxed and MOT'd as it should be in the UK.

The reason - (a) he says he can't be bothered to re-register here (b) has the use of a UK address (her mother's) and (c) says that the paper work is too complicated, despite me having given him all the information from here when he asked for it a couple of years ago.

So what do you do?  To all intents and purposes he's complying with UK law but clearly breaking French law, if he has a bump or serious accident here he'll just say that he's on hols and use his MIL's address!

Now is he taking the whotsit or not?

[Cassis]

I suspect you've got more important things to do than trying to persuade stubborn people to stay on the right side of the law.  You'll only get a headache banging your head against the wall.

[BobDee]

If one extends the great European ideal, there has to come a time when we all have Euro car registrations. It will then be legal to register a car in any EU country and providing the car has  road worthyness checks and pays insurance somewhere in Europe, then that will be a legal situation. All Uk insurance policies currently provide third party insurance in the EU, so any car insured in the UK cannot be regarded as uninsured in France. If a driver of a UK plated car is stopped in France, what "crime" will he be guilty of ? The car is insured, it is proven to be roadworthy and tax has been paid. Surely we are currently in a transition mode where local, country specific laws are being applied. In the UK there is already talk of making the MOT every 2 years instead of the present every year year renewal. If the aforementioned driver is stopped, he could probably challenge in Brussels what ever local charges were brought.  Can it be that the Brits are far more keen on point by point compliance than other EU residents might be?

[Bugsy]

You can always use this if they are really getting to you.

http://direct.gov.uk/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/UntaxedVehicle/UntaxedVehicleArticles/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4022073&chk=RkhSVT

[Sunday Driver]

Until we have total tax harmony across the EU, the great European ideal of an EU wide registration system will have to wait.

The cases we are talking about here involve French residents driving foreign (UK) registered cars in their country of residence.  Under EU wide regulations (adopted by both the UK and France) they are not permitted to do so.  Although the vehicles may have insurance certificates and are certified as roadworthy, it illegal for the individuals to actually drive those cars on a French road.  To drive such a vehicle illegally would invalidate their insurance cover in the event of an accident where their cars are damaged.

Given that those are the EU regulations which are properly reflected in local country specific laws, to suggest a challenge through Brussels is clearly a fantasy...

The code de la route imposes far more severe penalties than UK traffic law, combined with the proliferation of random roadside checks, so I would imagine that EU residents are just as keen as the Brits to keep their noses clean.......

 

[Jonzjob]

We have exactly the same situation with someone we know. They both had U.K. registered cars. Permanent tax residents.

A couple of years back he had an accident where he wrote his car off. It was not very old and they had been here for a while. The insurance company settled and he now has a French car. She has kept hers and when I asked about the legality of it I got a VERY snotty reply about that was a load of rot and she was driving legally. I know she is most definately not. Personally I think that he was very, very lucky!

If I am ever unfortunate enough to be clouted by an illegal U.K. car then it will be me who gets extreamly snotty if their insurance company does a smart about turn!!!

If any of these people hit and kill someone, I hate to think what the result would be! For us it just isn't worth the chance.

Another thought. If these cars have been exported from the U.K.. Surely that means that their registration has been taken from the car and it is now no longer registered in the U.K. If that is the case then the plates are not worth the material they are made of? And the vehicle is not registered anywhere. Therefore if the police tried to trace the owner they would not be able to do so, unless DVLA kept those records too? Sorry, I made a bit of a pigs ear of trying to explain that?

[BobDee]

Looking at the last post (Jonzjob) and applying my super human analytical skills (Joke), one could assume the following:

1) If it was a major accident, the Police must have been present.

2) The insurance company paid up even though the number plate wasn't French

3) The driver could not have been fined, cautioned or what ever if his Wife's car still has UK plates.

Therefore UK plates are OK!

(Standing by for the hurled bricks!)

[Cassis]

Alternative interpretation: sometimes nobody can be arsed to enforce the regs or they are ignorant of them.

[Cassis]

'

[Jonzjob]

Cass me awd Saus, I am shocked, nay dismayed by your language. Surely the police and damedjams know the law and all have the same interpretation of such? Next you will be saying that the functionaires differ in their interpretation of things? What can France be coming two?

I am, at this instant, holding my bref for a reply from DVLA, or what ever they call themselves these daze, to this original question. I already had one reply, very quickly, full of form numbers but nothing about the original question. Are they learning from the French functionaires peut etra?

[Cassis]

I think you are using the wrong terminology for a French official.

Not 'fonctionnaire'.

It is 'malfonctionnaire' or 'disfonctionnaire'.

[Will]

Well, I have just read on a certain other forum that if you have a UK driving licence it is illegal to drive a non-UK plated vehicle...

Just shows the sort of rubbish you can find on the internet to justify (or otherwise) any point of view.

[Jonzjob]

Well I had an answer from the DVLA. I'm not sure what question they answered, but it wasn't the one I asked. So I asked again and 'no reply' is the firm answer...

I phoned our insurance broker reference the argument over U.K. plated cars and she concurred that you are given 4 weeks to register  your car if you are a resident. If you have an accident and are not registered your insurance company are likely to refuse any cover because your car is NOT legal. Not only that but a CT is NOT legal on a U.K. plated car either. It must have an MOT.

If you were to take a U.K. plated car back to the U.K. with no tax or MOT (if necessary) would you be liable to be done by the police for driving a car not taxed or MOT'd, i.e. not road legal. Yes of course you would and the same applies here! Why don't they nick you here, probably because they can't be bothered with all the paper work.

If you have a U.K. plated car and are unluckly eaough to have an accident then you had better make sure you don't injure anyone, because if you do it 'could' cost you millions in compensation. And that is a quote from our broker, not me. Oh yes, and don't hit me because if you do and your insurance company walkes away I may just get a bit upset!!!

[Sunday Driver]

The DVLA aren't likely to give an answer regarding French residents driving UK registered cars because that involves foreign legislation which is outside their remit.

If you have a permanent residence in France and you bring your UK registered car over here on a permanent basis, then you fall within French vehicle import regulations.  The process starts with a visit to your tax office to declare it for VAT.  The VAT certificate (either the 846A or the quittus fiscale) then acts as a temporary French "registration", so your car is now French, as it were. 

You now have one month in which to legalise your car by obtaining a CT certificate (if necessary) and registering it.  This period is extended to four months if the car needs a single vehicle type approval inspection.  If you exceed this timescale, then in keeping with EU wide regulations, you are no longer allowed to drive your car in France.

Once your car is over here, UK MOTs and tax discs are immaterial because the car now falls under the French regulations, which do not recognise these UK items. To drive your car legally, you must get a CT done immediately.

Given the above, anyone bringing their car to France needs to organise things like certificates of conformity and LHD headlamps before they leave the UK so that they can ensure they comply with French regulations as soon as they arrive here.

The insurance broker's comments reflect the legal position and the consequences of illegally driving a foreign car in France.

 

 

 

[Dave&Olive]

hi

   ok donnot think anyone will win against SD in this section  ,but this is just a bit of info on insurance , even if you have 12 months left on your uk policy when you move even in the uk to another house you have to inform your insurance , because it is linked to the area ect where you live , so once you tell them france your 60day european clause is void , just try and claim if you have a bumb

                        dave

[Jonzjob]

The black and white of it Dave is that if you are Fench resident and you drive your car here for more than 4 weeks then it is not legal, unless you have the reasons that SD described earlier. It doesn't matter if you are insured with a dozen French insurance companies and you have a CT sticker in the windscreen. Yu are breaking the law if you drive the car.

If you have been here for years and are in the above situation then you are DEFINATELY not within the law! And gawd help you if you injure someone!!!

There is no grey area in this.

[Quillan]

Three years ago I had to decide if I should keep my Disco on UK plates or change over to French ones. I thought I was driving legally because my car was insured (unlimited EU use, fully comp) and had a current UK tax disc (I didn’t need a MOT because of the cars age).

Because of all these questions on what is and what is not legal and so many differing answers at the time I decided to contact the DVLC and ask them. The answer I got was that any car having a UK plate MUST meet the UK’s legal requirements i.e. have current tax, MOT and insurance from a UK source if driven on a public road. Putting the car on a SORN and using it in France also breaks those rules. On the question of how long I could keep the car out of the country (I told them I was a computer contractor working abroad for a year) they said as long as you like providing it meets the above criteria.

The person then went on to say that different countries (like France for example) then have their own laws regarding how long you can keep a car in their country legally on foreign plates and because it varies from one country to another and outside their (DVLC) remit they had no further comment to make other that I should check the legal status with the French authorities.

So rather than go through all the grief of changing over to French plates and then having a car that would be worth next to nothing I took mine back to the UK and bought a French car instead.

I do know of one person who has a personal UK number plate. He lives down here and does not want to loose it. Every year he takes his car back to the UK, gets a MOT, picks up his tax disc and drives back. I asked him if he lived in the UK would he drive for 12 hours for a MOT test then drive another 12 hours back home. His reply was "are you stupid”, so there you go. If you have just read that you will think what an idiot when in fact I know him reasonably well and he is a really nice, gentle, decent, honest(?) chap and is an ex policeman from Wales who has retired to France. His answer when challenged is that if stopped he tells the police he’s on holiday, his car is UK legal so what’s the problem? Well you have to laugh really.

In my personal opinion the reason people don’t register their cars properly in France are two fold. The first is they can hardly speak French and are scared they will get it wrong and it will cost a lot of money if they try and change their registration. The second reason is that the price of second hand cars is so high in France. With the latter I try to explain that it’s all relative and that when they sell the car they will get more than they would if it was an English car back in the UK and because they depreciate slower you get more miles for your money.

I am told, and its been mentioned on this website, that if you got to the northern (French) ports there are loads and loads of cars parked in the car parks with UK plates, out of date tax disks with CT’s and French insurance stickers on them while the owners visit the UK so who are the owners kidding? They know its illegal else they would be taking their cars back to the UK with them.

Now we have the moral question. Knowing that these people are driving illegally in France and that probably their insurance is not worth the paper it’s written on and that if they for instance hit a bus stop full of children (including your own) should you report them and more important do you?

[andyh4]

[quote user="Quillan"]

 

They know its illegal else they would be taking their cars back to the UK with them.

 

Perhaps they don't know it's illegal and they are just avoiding paying the ferry costs for the car - often much cheaper as a foot passenger

Now we have the moral question. Knowing that these people are driving illegally in France and that probably their insurance is not worth the paper it’s written on and that if they for instance hit a bus stop full of children (including your own) should you report them and more important do you?

If I knew anyone then I think I would be likely to grass on them - but I don't so it's a mute question

[/quote]