UK car back to the UK while waiting for French plates

[nom de plume]

My UK vehicle is currently going through the process to be registered

in France. I have French insurance and have sent the forms off for

registration. I have notified the DVLA but I am still on UK plates as

the new ones have not arrived. I need to return to the UK in the next

couple of weeks, if the French plates have not arried will this cause

me a problem?

Thanks

Diana

[Nick Trollope]

In theory you shouldn't, but some of us do - I need to take one of our Fridge vans back every week, but this vehicle is proving impossible to register (mainly due to DVLA cock-ups). The Police or Customs in the UK have never showed an interest & I have never been stopped in the UK...

 

[Sunday Driver]

If you have notified the DVLA that your vehicle has been permanently exported, then its UK registration will no longer be valid and to drive it in the UK, it'll need to have its new french registration.  Hopefully your new carte grise will arrive in time - you could give your prefecture a call to chase them up.

[Jc]

Remember the man a few weeks ago whose car was almost towed away!!

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="nicktrollope"]

...... (mainly due to DVLA ***-ups).........

[/quote]

The truth, now......[;-)]

PS:  When you're in edit/quote mode, the asterisks are replaced by the real letters [:-))]

(I've reinstated them for the purposes of forum decorum).

[Eslier]

You have a bit of a problem here I am afraid.  You don't have a Carte Grise so your car isn't registered in France. You've sent the export declaration back to the DVLA (informing them that the car HAS BEEN exported) and you are no longer in posession of a V5C. Therefore, technically your car is not registered anywhere at present and is therefore illegal to drive in any country - including France.

Having recently been watching the BBC "traffic cops" program which is following the Hampshire police (which incidentally covers Portsmouth and the ferryport), they are now using (as I am sure most other constabularies are) mobile automatic number plate recognition cameras.  What this means is that if you are caught by their camera in a UK plated vehicle, the camera and onboard computer immediately links to the DVLA computer and comes back with an indication of the car's registration status, whether it is taxed and if it is insured. The camera can check many many cars each minute. As soon as it finds an illegal car it flags an alarm to Mr Plod who then chases after you. In the cases shown on TV, the owner of the vehicle is no longer permitted to drive the vehicle and it is removed. If the necessary registration / tax documents are not produced within a fairly short time (14 days from memory) then the car is crushed. I suppose my point is, unless you are prepared to risk this happening then it probably isn't a good idea to take the car back to the UK until you have it fully registered in France.

For the benefit of others reading this wishing to avoid falling into no-registration territory, it's far better to visit your prefecture or sous-prefecture in person with you documents. If everything is in order then there is no reason why your new Carte Grise shouldn't be issued on the spot - and don't send the export notification back until after this has been done. You can also send back your unexpired UK road tax at the same time for refund of any outstanding months.