Emigrating to France
- Thread starter Toggy
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- Jan 26, 2017
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- Eight Years and 28,000 Miles.
I believe you get one from the manufacturer of your vehicle.
I assume your vehicle must be Left-hand drive. RHD's are not allowed in the EU for longer than 6 months.
bigtree
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Interesting that, my mate has had his in France far longer than that and he lives there.
- Jul 6, 2009
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I think it is the habitation door that matters? If you have a gas tank fitted that can cause problems as well
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I admit my info is anecdotal. From different unconnected people too.
Lenny HB
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I doubt if you will get one for a 2002 vehicle I don't think manufacturers started issuing them until 2004. It could make life difficult for you.
It may be more cost effective to sell your motorhome in the uk and get another in France…
Good luck..
Good luck..
Bolti
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We had a car put onto Spanish plates, no coc. We obtained an engineer's report for the matriculation.
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Our friend recently re-registered her RHD car in France
HKF
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If it helps, I can give you the contact details for a guy who registered two UK vehicles and a trailer for us in France. I'm not connected to him in any way, other than using his services. He's very knowledgable, only charged us €40 per registration, is English and works quickly. Please message me if you'd like his details. I hope this doesn't break any rules of the group. If it does, please remove my post, Jim , and accept my apology 
We registered our RHD motorcycle without problems!
I think you will find that is an old wife's tale.
Many countries within the EU were right hand drive up until Germany decided to standardise left hand drive on all countries is occupied during WW2, including Austria and the Czech republic.
Denmark changed in 1973
and Malta and Eire, which are in the EU, are RHD.
(As was the UK until very recently)
Maggie T. famously pointed out that there were more miles of roads in the world that were RHD when the EU suggested the UK change.
HKF
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I'm sorry but this isn't true. We registered our RHD with no problem at all.
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Do a search on this forum.
I seem to remember there were a couple of vans that people were re-plating ahead of Brexit coming into force in 2020.
I seem to remember it's quite a big paper exercise and is not cheap and involved solicitors.
I also seem to remember one of the people saying that with the benefit of hindsight it would have been easier to either leave the vehicle as a UK registered and take it back and forth several times a year, or, sell it and by a French one.
HKF
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It's really not that hard. The only vehicle we chose not to bring over was a Mitsubishi Pajero, as it's a grey import. Other than that, it's very straightforward.
That is totally incorrect!
Both incorrect
Look at This official french website for registering your vehicle for the first time in France.
You need an account which you can register for quite easily.
It is in French but if you use Google Web browser it will translate it for you.
If you get stuck just give us a shout.
You need an account which you can register for quite easily.
It is in French but if you use Google Web browser it will translate it for you.
If you get stuck just give us a shout.
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With reference to the CoC, for a van of that age you will need one from Mercedes for the cab and chassis part and one from Rapido for the conversion, had it been on a Fiat with Alko you would also need one for the Alko element.
Not so. I got one from Audi for my 1998 Audi.
Motorhomes are treated differently to cars here., had your Audi been a camping car you would have needed 2 one for the base vehicle and one for the conversion
From mid 2000's (cannot remember exact year) motorhome converters were enabled to issue a whole vehicle approval which negated the separate certificates, although not all converters chose to do so but I believe Rapido were one of the early adopters, not that it will help the o.p. for his van
- Aug 18, 2014
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assaid old wives tale.France will even reregister rhd commercial vans which you can't do in spain even though you will see some on spanish plates.
might have been a bit later than that I think
Yes , I'd agree
Yes but that is a car & they started being issued far earlier,1994 I think, than commercial vehicles & motorhomes.
To the OP .Do you have anything in the "type approval " box in section K on your V5? If no, it will be a CoC & all uphill hard work.
Here info in section K means
& no CoC necessary.No info means no one is in the slightest bit interested even if you get a Coc as it still needs to be added to the V5 by way of an engineers inspection & I haven't been able to get anyone who does them to even be interested?
Might be easier in France though?
- Oct 12, 2009
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Here in Poland it is possible to register RHD 
.5t but not over, as I know to my cost, but I swerved round the restriction by registering my MH as a vintage vehicle, because even though it is only 19 years-old there is no age requirement and RHD for that category is acceptable.
The laugh is that the yellow number plate has a depiction of a 1920s car on it, which is a bit strange for a 2003 MH.
Geoff
.5t but not over, as I know to my cost, but I swerved round the restriction by registering my MH as a vintage vehicle, because even though it is only 19 years-old there is no age requirement and RHD for that category is acceptable.The laugh is that the yellow number plate has a depiction of a 1920s car on it, which is a bit strange for a 2003 MH.
Geoff
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bigtree
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Is it possible that RHD cars are only allowed 6 months in the EU IF they keep their UK reg. plates. That might explain my misunderstanding.
HKF
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No, that's incorrect, too. The fact that a car is RHD has nothing to do with anything.
Having gone through this rigmarole when we were posted to Germany and took our van with us the laws at the time were anything under 3500kg didn't need a CoC but anything 3500kg and above did, we managed to get one (eventually) through AT but it would have cost me 800 - 1000 Euros to have got one through a specialist garage, hopefully the rules in France are not as strict.
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Hello you 2!
After a few years in France you sound like you can do it all now !!! Well done !
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