to keep or not to keep?

[chessfou]

There must be many of you with experience of keeping your old UK car

and re-registering in France (or wishing that you had done so). I'm

hoping to "cash in" on all that expertise.

We are moving to France in May. We had decided to give away (to one of

our children) one of our two cars, sell the other one and then buy in

France.

However, a combination of thoughts that we will probably still need two

cars for some years (initial location in France fairly rural) and that

it would be very convenient to drive to our new home (thus able to keep

with us all our main computers - I use 4 on a daily basis - and some

other valuables that we would rather not consign to the removals van)

have modified our current thinking (now: give one to son, re-register

one in France and buy main French one).

Having got that UK car to France, it seems it would be a real pain to

get it back to the UK to dispose of. Therefore, it seems to make sense

to re-register in France and use it as our second car.

Many of you must have faced a very similar problem. Do you have any

particular pointers? If you did what we are contemplating doing, did it

work out for you? If you followed a different route, do you think that

worked out better?

[naps]

We moved with a RHD car because it was more practical to take it with us, plus the fact that it was only a year old - it didn't make sense to sell it.  That was when we moved to Holland.  Since then we've relocated to France and the car came with us, now 5 years old, along with a 5 year old LHD  The import system here in France was quick and painless.

Since arriving we've realised that neither car is ideal for this area as it's too hot in the summer and we don't have air conditioning in either.  We also know that we'll have to keep the RHD until it's ready for the scrap yard or we move back to the UK as it wouldn't be possible to sell it here in France.

I'd say, from our experience the things to consider are...

How old is your car and how much would you lose selling it before you came?
What is the cost of an equivalent LHD  vehicle in France?
If you brought your car, would you be happy to keep it forever?
Does your car have aircon (will you need it in the area you're moving to)?
What sort of driving are you expecting to do?  Overtaking on country roads, toll booths and ticket machines can be a pain in a RHD car.

 

[chessfou]

Naps, many thanks for those thoughts. Yes, questions invariably lead to more questions.[;)]

[quote]

How old is your car and how much would you lose selling it before you came?

What is the cost of an equivalent LHD  vehicle in France?

If you brought your car, would you be happy to keep it forever?

Does your car have aircon (will you need it in the area you're moving to)?

What

sort of driving are you expecting to do?  Overtaking on country roads,

toll booths and ticket machines can be a pain in a RHD car.[/quote]

Relevant car is 8 years old, so worth next to nothing (£1k or a little over).

It won't last forever but happy to keep it until it's ready for the knacker's yard (probably no more than 2-3 years or so).

It does have the necessary aircon.

This will be our 2nd car, so basically run around to local town,

shopping etc. when main car already bagged. Really not anticipating

much use at all.

Incidentally, I used (mid-late 90s) to drive quite often between East

Anglia and Madrid (usually via Calais) in a RHD and I rarely found the

toll booths and ticket machines a pain, albeit that was maybe because I

was only too glad to stretch the legs, however briefly.

[Jonzjob]

When we moved to France we had to come over by car to the Aude (11) because we were bringing our dog. We had a 4 year old Citroen Xantia estate with air con. I was quite willing to drive a RHD car on holiday but as stated above not to live with... So I tried to buy a new LHD car in England, the dealers were not allowed to sell them. I couldn't buy in France without a French address. I turned my nose up at the second hand prices in the U.K., 9 year old Espace = £6000! and I was not willing to accept approx 1/3 of the value offered by a bloke in the Lot (46) for my Xantia. So I bought our new Citroen C8 from a firm in Holland and I had a very enjoyable day out in Holland collecting it.

It went like this. the car was collected, tax free, on Dutch plates. I then regestered it in the U.K., insurance and VAT conciderations, we bought it over here and re-regestered it here in Carcassonne without any problems and in the end I had bought a new car for £3500 cheaper than I could have got it either here in France or RHD in England. By the time it was 6 months old it had been on 3 different sets of plates.

When you import a new car into France you have to prove that VAT/TVA has been payed and being that it's 17.5 in england and 19.6 here it's obviously better to pay it there and the U.K. regisetering fee was about £80.

If you would like details of the transactions then either e-mail or PM me...

Good luck,

John.

[Renaud]

The English lady, at whose B&B we usually stay, tells of a toll booth/payage incident. When she got out of her RHD car to pay the toll, a loitering policeman noticed that she had not switched-off her engine - he fined her on the spot for abandoning her car with its engine running.

So switch-off when you enjoy stretching your legs.