Hi hope some one can shed some light on this
I am aware that when you buy a car no more than six months can have passed on its controle, however what is the position if you are gifted a car and the six month rule has passed.
Thanks guys this site is amazing ask a question and bang!!!..you get your answer tenfold…basically I am having to get a CT,to be able to register the car ,which is peeing me off as I know the car and it will fly through a test but it has over 12 months left on it …grrr another 75euros parted with,for nowt…
As I understand it, you can present your car for a CT up to two months in advance of the due date.
My car's first CT is due in December 2014.
It wasn't my idea, the seller volunteered to have it tested and I am reasonably confident that he reported accurately what the testing station had told him.
The 'fib' was in relation to what Mike Kearney was told, I was talking about the garagist saying that it was impossible to enter the CT into the computer if a vehicle was less than 4 years old. My car has no taxi plate (as it is not a taxi, it is a VTC - old 'grand remise') just a simple sticker and it goes through the garage computer.
Good to know that our representatives in Bruxelles are working hard to make our lives less complicated!
This is a big surprise & one which will lead to much confusion:-
Validité en France d'un contrôle technique effectué dans l'Union européenne - 09.01.2014
L'arrêté du 19 décembre 2013 prévoit que le contrôle technique effectué dans un autre pays de l'Union européenne sera accepté pour immatriculer un véhicule en France à compter du 1er mai 2014.
Les informations contenues sur cette page restent d'actualité et seront modifiées à cette date.
So for a while anyway an imported car can drive around with dodgy headlights until it is due for a French CT!
Tracy, I think you will find that if your car is a taxi or used to take fare paying passengers then you are correct. But no-one is telling fibs - for a normal private car over 4 years old (VP) the CT is every 2 years, for a collectors car its every 5 years & for a light commercial vehicle (a van or 'societe' car - no rear seats) it is every 2 years with an annual pollution check, as Peter says.
This from servicepublic.fr (the French Government):-
Véhicules concernés
Véhicules de plus de 4 ans
Le 1er contrôle doit être effectué dans les 6 mois qui précèdent la date du 4ème anniversaire de la 1ère mise en circulation du véhicule. Les suivants doivent être effectués tous les 2 ans.
Par exemple, pour un véhicule mis en circulation le 1er juillet 2012, le contrôle technique doit avoir lieu entre le 1er janvier 2016 et le 30 juin 2016.
Aucune convocation n'est envoyée, le contrôle est à votre initiative.
À noter : les véhicules de collection (plus de 30 ans d'âge) sont soumis au contrôle technique tous les 5 ans.
Véhicules vendus d'occasion
Si le véhicule a plus de 4 ans, vous devez remettre à l'acquéreur, avant la conclusion du contrat de vente, la preuve du contrôle technique datant de moins de 6 mois.
Vous n'êtes pas tenu de faire les réparations demandées si l'acheteur accepte de les prendre à son compte.
Cette preuve sera nécessaire à l'acquéreur pour obtenir un certificat d'immatriculation (ex-carte grise) dans une série normale (c'est-à-dire autre que véhicule de collection ou immatriculation provisoire).
À savoir : si vous vendez votre véhicule à un professionnel (garage ou concessionnaire automobile), vous n'êtes pas obligé d'effectuer le contrôle technique.
Nope, no plate, it' a Peugeot 5008, regular car used as 'voiture de tourisme avec chauffeur'. When I presented it the guy told me it didn't need one,I explained what it was for and he did no problem. The VTC regs are changing every minute so very little solid info is known about them.
My friend's husband left her and because the car was in both names, she had to get a CT to transfer it to just her name - and acquire his signature even though he had disappeared with no forwarding address.
Ha - going off on a tangent France Telecom wouldn't change the phone bill either as it was in his name only.
is your car a commercial vehicle ? like a white van etc does it have a 'plate' ?
these vehicles 'utilitaires' are subject to a full CT every two years and an intermediate visite for the pollution etc every other year
Someone is telling fibs. I use my car professionally and need a CT every year, once the car is a year old. No problem getting it done.
They check every signature now??? They are not very good at it then or perhaps the gendarmes will suddenly pounce & five of my customers will mysteriously disappear.
Not that I would in any way advocate anything illegal. Better to scrap perfectly good cars - oh, you can't unless you have the paperwork in your name, of course.
Most garages do that nowadays though some actually offer it free of charge as a carrot to buy the car. It's a good idea to ask if the CG is at your or their charge. It doesn't do any harm to 'invite' the garage to include it in the sale package !
Sounds great Brian. Fortuitous for me that this discussion arrived in my inbox today.
Thanks Graham
Can't see why not as long as your insurance company is happy with it. Will it have an MOT equivalent ?
lol Mark
The best you can hope for is that the old owner was French as a squiggle with a few lateral lines punctuated with a dot would probably do the trick…
Thanks Mark. I know that to be the case but if the old certificat has not been endorsed and signed (the new style registration system has a facsimile of the old owners signature for comparison) which was the case in point with my friend, re-registration is not possible.
Forging the old owner’s signature if you are in possession of the old certificat could land you in a heap of murky smelly stuff 
If you do not get all the paperwork when you buy a car, provided you have the carte grise it is possible to register the car still - but it does involve a bit of lateral thinking such as "do the authorities have a central register of signatures?" & " the car was bought & sold in good faith " - or just write the whole thing off....
Graham,
The new owmer can still register the car in his name even if the seller has not returned the copy for the prefecture. It is possible for the new owner to go to the prefecture to register the car on the same day as the purchase but the old owner may not have sent the document off by that time. It is possible to let the new owner have both copies so that the new owner has a copy, the prefecture has a copy presented by the new owner & the old owner has a copy. In the event of the new owner getting a speeding ticket in the meantime & the ticket being sent to the old owner, all he has to do is return the ticket with a photocopy of the cession form & it will be re issued to the buyer.