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Hi all.

I was recently informed that second hand car market is good in Belgium and the transfer or registration to france relatively easy.

Has anyone done this  and if so what was your experience .Thinking of buying a largish petrol mercedes and having it converted for gas 2 to and fro across the big river. Anyone have any recommendations.

regards

Damon

Villefagnan

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Hi Damon,

We just purchased a second hand Belgian Citroen Berlingo for my wife, and the whole operation was completely hassle free and enjoyable.

Registration took me about 10 mins at the local Prefecture, with the Certificate D'Immatriculation arriving some 10 days after.

If you private mail me, I will kindly give you the brokers contact details, he is 100% reliable, helpful & friendly, is English & trades both privately & through ebay (UK).

We intend to buy another larger car (Chrysler Voyager perhaps?) early next year, from him without doubt.

By the way, the Berlingo we got, was top specification, full service history, ultra reliable and some 3000euros under the typical French Price.

Belgium seems to have far greater supplies and turnaround of cars, with full model & specification choices - rather than the bog-standrd models which France seems to prefer.

All Belgian cars can come with a 1 month Transit plates & insurance, or 3 months including a full Belgian Controle Technique (aka MOT), which is very stringent, and a good indicator of roadworthiness & maintenance standards.

Good luck - I certainly will be doing this again.

Mark

 

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Because big petrol engined automatics are rare in France, I bought my second-hand Mercedes in Belgium and imported it without problems.

You can do your research on-line as there are lots of dealers in Belgium with their own websites, and some advertisement websites for private sales.

The dealers all seem used to selling for export, and they will provide Belgian export licence plates, which are valid for at least a month from the date of purchase. You may be able to negotiate the price of these plates in with the price for the car. The price of the plates includes insurance for the same period, so you can drive off and do all the immatriculation once you get home, then get yourself insured by a French insurer, once you have the carte grise.

The steps you need to take once in France are

1) Get an attestation of TVA paid from your local Hotel des Impots. This is easy if you have the sales invoice, and costs nothing.

2) Fill in the immatriculation request form which you can get from your local prefecture, and take it with any other documents specified on the form, including the TVA attestation and a cheque for the fees, to the local DRIRE. Leave the dossier there with a self addressed envelope.

3) Take the stuff that arrives from DRIRE to the prefecture and pay some more. Leave 20 minutes later with your carte grise.

Well, that's how I did it anyway!

I also imported one of our cars from UK by the same process, and I'm about to import another LHD car that I bought on ebay from a seller in Kent.

Best of luck

Patrick
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Hi,

Just a thought. It wasn't all that long ago that diesel was considerably cheaper than petrol. More diesel cars, Chancellor puts up tax on diesel. Is the cost to change worth it when you could probably buy a cheap diesel car in any event. Have a look at www.car-dealers.tv I've no link with that company but they do source cars at what look like good prices. They will also look for a particular car for you. We are moving over next year and I will be giving them a good look.

Regards Paul Bradford

 

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