Living under the radar in Europe

[Catrose]

How would you know the difference between the folk you describe and me?

Because if I look up your registration plate I would hope it would come up as legal.

Although I thought it wasn’t possible to have cars of two different countries registered as you can only register a car in your country of residence? I really though only UK residents could register a car in the UK....

[mysty]

How would you know the difference between the folk you describe and me?

Because if I look up your registration plate I would hope it would come up as legal.

Although I thought it wasn’t possible to have cars of two different countries registered as you can only register a car in your country of residence? I really though only UK residents could register a car in the UK....

I bought a UK car last year with no documents.
Spoke with DVLA or whatever they are called.
They said to just get it registered to any UK address in my name.
I did it all by recorded delivery post and got the V5 very quickly.
Then it was simple to re register it here.
I am not a UK resident.

[Catrose]

And what do the insurance company say..? If you have an accident will they pay out, or will they say ‘sorry, you’re not a UK resident so that invalidates our cover”?

Lots of things in life seem fine, until they’re not.

I am quite bitter about this as have had a very bad experience.

[mysty]

The car was brought over on a transporter. I had it insured with Allianz, went in to the local office with just a copy of the receipt for the car and I gave them the UK registration number and got the insurance paper.
Got the V5 a few weeks later and the CG about six months later.

[exile]

How would you know the difference between the folk you describe and me?

Because if I look up your registration plate I would hope it would come up as legal.

Although I thought it wasn’t possible to have cars of two different countries registered as you can only register a car in your country of residence? I really though only UK residents could register a car in the UK....

No. you can register a car in another country. What you cannot do legally is drive the car registered elsewhere in your country of residence - in some cases there will be some degrees of freedom to allow you a set time to re-register such a car. But of course not in the UK.

I had to play a little fast and lose with the rules. I was working in Germany but the OH had moved into our house in France and I spent every weekend and holidays in France. I was also doing a lot of international travel such that my bed nights were something like 130 in Germany, 140 in France and the rest somewhere else. So my residence by virtue of employment was Germany. My residence by virtue of family links and the number of bed nights was France. By my understanding of the strict letter of the rules, I should have driven a French registered car as far as Luxembourg and then changed to a German registered one to my apartment in Germany. I chose to keep the German registrations while this situation continued on the basis that I felt better able to plead with a Gendarme than argue with the Bundesgrenzpolizei. It never came to that although the latter did stop me once on entering Germany from Luxembourg wanting to know what I had bought (for illegal resale) in Luxembourg. I could truthfully answer just fuel for the car.

[Spardo]

No. you can register a car in another country. What you cannot do legally is drive the car registered elsewhere in your country of residence - in some cases there will be some degrees of freedom to allow you a set time to re-register such a car. But of course not in the UK.

I wonder what genius thinks up all these crazy rules. If I understand correctly, from what you say, I, as a French resident, can drive a UK reg car anywhere but in France? Or is it only in the UK?

So if I was to get myself to England, hire a UK reg car and drive it to Dublin via ferry of course, that would be OK, would it? But if I wanted to do a round trip via France to return it back to England, that would be illegal?

Or is there a special rule which absolves hired cars from this nonsense? And if there is would it include leased vehicles? I reckon not as that seems to be the way the world is going these days.

Just so pleased that I am not going to be in such a position again in this lifetime.

[exile]

Ownership is the key. If you are not the owner of the car, you can drive any nationality reg'd car anywhere. I should have made that clear.

I can understand why the rules are there - it stops us all getting say a Bulgarian registered car, no road tax, MOT equivalent once every 5 years (don't know if that's true but use it to make a point) virtually impossible to be fined except on the spot and insurance a rock bottom prices. It does however create this strange anomaly that you as a French resident can drive your German registered car throughout Europe except in France.

[Spardo]

Ownership is the key. If you are not the owner of the car, you can drive any nationality reg'd car anywhere. I should have made that clear.

I can understand why the rules are there - it stops us all getting say a Bulgarian registered car, no road tax, MOT equivalent once every 5 years (don't know if that's true but use it to make a point) virtually impossible to be fined except on the spot and insurance a rock bottom prices. It does however create this strange anomaly that you as a French resident can drive your German registered car throughout Europe except in France.

Thank you Andy, but doesn't that mean that your Bulgarian example doesn't work as a reason for the rules? If I lived on that street on the Belgian border (literally, it runs down the middle), where I once collected a French dog but had to go into Belgium briefly because of the traffic system, I could live on the French side and keep my Bulgarian car in a lockup opposite, then travel all over Europe with it (the traffic system was not such that I had to cross into France in either direction, simply made it effectively a one way street).

Not having a go at you of course but it makes a complete mockery of the so-called reason for the rule.

If ownership is the only criterion, what is to stop the 2nd car being in the wife's name, as long as she never drives it of course?

[Joinfrance]

Just out of interest I should say that I have always declared my income (all from the U.K.) here. I had a tax allowance in the U.K. but my income would have been taxed, whereas filling in a french tax form gave me a much higher tax allowance and Ihave never paid a cent in tax, and last year I even got a rebate!

[Loup-garou]

Forgive me if this is a pedantic point only, but how can you have received a rebate if you have never paid a cent in tax?