mikethebike147
Free Member
- Feb 26, 2018
- 17
- 1
- Funster No
- 52,592
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the situation of UK residents owning a vehicle in France either by buying one there or taking one over from the UK to leave there.
We bought our LH drive Hymer (almost new) in the UK last year with the sole aim of taking it to and leaving it in France. We have a mobile home there and so for the last 6-7 years we have gradually spent more time there, so that we now spend winters in the UK and most of the summer from April onwards over in France.
We are the 1st proper owner of the MH, it came from Germany where it was used as a demo vehicle and so had done about 4000 kms but it was effectively 'new' and had been registered on a 66 plate by the dealer who imported it. I don't know if that makes any difference to anything lol.
So, we want to leave it in France for a few reasons. For one thing it's way too big for comfortable use on congested UK roads, secondly because of it's high value insurance companies were not exactly fighting each other for our business, so we had to accept a policy with limited 'foreign use' which will not be long enough to cover the time that we plan to spend out of the country. And of course in a few years time we would have the problem of having to take it back to the UK for an MOT which again is something we would not be keen to do.
But it seems that there are various problems with the idea of putting it on French plates and insuring it in France. What used to be a reasonably simple process is now it seems very complex and difficult. From what we are hearing there seems to be a difficulty with non residents owning and registering abroad.
We do know people who spend 90% of their time in France but are still UK residents who have French registered vehicles but perhaps they did so before it all changed? It all seems to revolve around whether or not you are 'domiciled' in France ie can prove that is where you live.
Is this perhaps just yet another example of a law that is in existence but in reality the French do not bother to actually uphold it? An example is that people are not legally entitled to 'live' all year round in mobile homes in France but we know many that do, even though officially they still 'live' in the UK. But the French are hardly likely to send so many Brits packing when they are spending their retirement money in France instead of the UK!!
If anyone has any recent experience of the process of registering a vehicle in France I would be very grateful for any help or advice.
We bought our LH drive Hymer (almost new) in the UK last year with the sole aim of taking it to and leaving it in France. We have a mobile home there and so for the last 6-7 years we have gradually spent more time there, so that we now spend winters in the UK and most of the summer from April onwards over in France.
We are the 1st proper owner of the MH, it came from Germany where it was used as a demo vehicle and so had done about 4000 kms but it was effectively 'new' and had been registered on a 66 plate by the dealer who imported it. I don't know if that makes any difference to anything lol.
So, we want to leave it in France for a few reasons. For one thing it's way too big for comfortable use on congested UK roads, secondly because of it's high value insurance companies were not exactly fighting each other for our business, so we had to accept a policy with limited 'foreign use' which will not be long enough to cover the time that we plan to spend out of the country. And of course in a few years time we would have the problem of having to take it back to the UK for an MOT which again is something we would not be keen to do.
But it seems that there are various problems with the idea of putting it on French plates and insuring it in France. What used to be a reasonably simple process is now it seems very complex and difficult. From what we are hearing there seems to be a difficulty with non residents owning and registering abroad.
We do know people who spend 90% of their time in France but are still UK residents who have French registered vehicles but perhaps they did so before it all changed? It all seems to revolve around whether or not you are 'domiciled' in France ie can prove that is where you live.
Is this perhaps just yet another example of a law that is in existence but in reality the French do not bother to actually uphold it? An example is that people are not legally entitled to 'live' all year round in mobile homes in France but we know many that do, even though officially they still 'live' in the UK. But the French are hardly likely to send so many Brits packing when they are spending their retirement money in France instead of the UK!!
If anyone has any recent experience of the process of registering a vehicle in France I would be very grateful for any help or advice.
) yah for us lol