Can I transport a sit-on mower on the ferry?

Having now sold my house I’m arranging to take some of my stuff back to the UK in hired Luton van next month.

My question is am I allowed to carry my sit-on lawnmower on the ferry from Caen to Portsmouth?

Thanks in advance.

I had a mental image of you carrying your ride-on wrapped up in a blanket! (I overlooked the word Luton van).

You aren’t resident here so this isn’t a transfer of residence is it? (If so it would be a different process)

So your goods in the van will probably exceed the £390 personal allowance and you’ll need to make a customs declaration. But I don’t think a ride on is any different from any other tool or piece of equipment as it’s not a vehicle is it?

Start here for the customs process

(PS: did your German nationality arrive? I’m nearly about to enter year 3 of waiting and no sign)

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Hi Jane

Many thanks for the reply. Oh gosh! I didn’t know about and hadn’t even considered the Customs aspect!
I’m just transporting my own personal goods and chattels (furniture, crockery, sheets and bedding etc) back to storage in the UK until I can find somewhere else in France to buy. Surely, I don’t have to pay tax on old furniture that I bought secondhand 12 years ago? But thank you for the heads up on this.

What I was really asking was, am I physically allowed to transport something like a sit-on mower on the ferry?

Yes…ironic that you should ask. I just got my German Nationality through exactly a week ago today! In the end it took two years and three months. But, now there is a new system/path that I know about and it could all have been done in possibly under 3 months. With the old method I too would have still been waiting. Is it German Nationality you have applied for?

Thanks again

I have several times but not on that route so I stayed quiet. Both LD lines, and the tunnel without issue but you have to drain the fuels of course .

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Thank you for that! :slightly_smiling_face::+1:t4:

I’m a bit confused @Derin100 . If your stuff is in France, from a house sold in France, and you’re buying another house in France, then why not just store the stuff in France, at least for now, if it may just go into the new house in France. Seems a whole lot simpler to me.

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Because I didn’t know where to store it in France.
And, I haven’t as yet found anywhere in France to buy….and it’s suddenly proving quite difficult as all of a sudden stuff is selling in France.
To be honest, there hasn’t been a lot ‘joined up thinking’ in this whole process and sale for one reason or another…so I do take your point. But, the van and ferry are now booked…and I just need a break for now from having all my stuff (and live!) scattered all over different countries in Europe and different parts of the UK.

Curious about new 3 month approach?

I am greedy so have applications in for french and for German nationality (it is allowed).

There are as many storage places in France as there are in the UK. When I needed one (in rural Deux Sevres) I found one in two minutes by talking to a neighbour.

Are you applying for German Nationality based on being the child of a German parent?

If so, then as of last August, you could apply through a process called ‘Erklärung’. Translated that just means “Declaration”. It’s basically you just “Declaring” that you want to be German! (But you have to have certain things that give you the right to do that of course! :rofl:).

I would have never known about this had I not made an enquiry directly to the Ministry (BVA) on the progress of my ongoing application. Previous enquiries through the Embassy in London were just met with cursory advice that they couldn’t comment on individual cases, that I just needed to be patient and that it could take 3 years.

All I needed to do it by this alternative route was to fill in a much shorter form - I think it was only 2 or 3 sides - in contrast to the insanely long ones that I had to fill out before. I also just need to provide a scanned copy of my UK Passport, a basic UK Criminal Records Certificate (which took 15 minutes to get online) and a letter from UK Visas and Immigration to confirm that my Mother had never held nor applied for British citizenship - which thankfully, she never did.

This last thing was actually the step that incurred the most time for me as nobody at UKVI seemed to know what they were doing. I should have received that letter from them with 10 working days but it took 6 weeks. It also proved the mostly costly step in one way because they charge £250 for that.

In the end, the rest of the process from the German end was free for me and now also my children are also able to apply via the same route, if they wish.

Collecting the certificate of citizenship did prove to be another palaver and did again show up how archaic Germany is in some respects. They at first said, I either had to come to Berlin to collect it, or they could send it to one of the Embassies in the UK (London or Edinburgh - neither is close for me in the UK) for me to collect there or, as I am currently in Hannover, I could collect in person from the woman who had dealt with it all in the end and the certificate was ready on her desk in……Neubrandenburg. If you don’t know where that is….it’s nearly in Poland! :man_facepalming:t4:

Finally, after much pleading, they agreed to send it to a branch of the BVA in Hannover and I collected it there, in a Bundeswehr Barracks, last week! :smile:

I’m glad I got it in the end but there was so much previous frustration and so many times I just felt like giving up. And, then there was needless cost. The Embassy in London also previously insisted that I sit the B1 language examine even though I’ve been speaking German since a baby, am fluent (not perfect) and did A-level German at school….they said it was “too long ago, with all respect”. Cheeky sods!

At the time, I ended up travelling to Germany to do that exam because the wait in the UK was too long so that exam to cost me a significant amount because it’s a near day long set of exams. I did however have great delight in sending my certificate to the person in London who had insisted upon me sitting the exam, showing a mark of 97.5% which was the highest that language school in Hannover had ever recorded for that level and I didn’t do any study for it all…hahahaha!

If you can’t do it through ‘Erklärung’ and still have to go through the old, more lengthy route then I think they will still make having this B1 language exam an issue as “Language” is at the number 1 position of the their list of 10 -12 things that they regard and score as desirable. When I sat it there were plenty of people on the day doing it for just that reason. And, this was emphasised when I handed my application in because my sister, who doesn’t speak German, was somewhat tersely told at the Embassy in London: “Well, the application takes a long time so you have a at least 2 years to learn German in the meantime!”

Yes, you can have dual nationality through this route. Previously, I was really worried that this was going to be a post-Brexit sticking point which is why I rushed to get my initial application in on the very last day of the Transition Period. I was still prepared for it to be a fight as they had already made a point of saying that dual nationality would only be possible for other EU or Swiss citizens.

In the end, there was no problem at all with except the printed caution that accompanied my Certificate of Citizenship that if wanted by one or the other’s authorities , I could not take refuge in the other’s Embassy to avoid apprehension by the other.

I did waiver and consider the implications of this for a good couple of hours but in the end decided that en balance I would still accept the Citizenship! :thinking:

:sweat_smile:

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Thanks.

Yes, I’m sure that might have been the better option. As I said though, much of the logistics of this sale and move have been ‘last minute’, chaotic, done at distance (I’m not even in France or the UK at the moment, I’m in Germany!). I personally don’t speak French, I am alone and this is related to a far from amicable divorce after 30 years of marriage and there are health issues. Also, the only person who I could get to physically help me is a friend from the UK. I would have needed a ‘helper’ in France too….and don’t have one.

So, in the end, Yes it’s probably a bit more expensive to do what I doing but in the face of everything else that I’m having to deal with at the moment and the lack of any help that I’m getting from my (soon to ex) wife, this is the way it’s panned out. This way at the very least all my possessions are at least in one country whilst I take stock and try to put my life back together somehow.

At one stage, I thought might be able to have almost seamlessly moved from one house to the next but before I could act more than one house that I was keen on has sold! :worried:

Good grief… Take time-out and gather yourself together.
I hope all goes well in UK.

How interesting, never heard of that new process. However my mother took British nationality so I can’t change track. I am applying for my German nationality to be restored, under article 116 which is for people and their descendants who had their nationality stripped from them by the Nazi’s. My mother and grandparents fled, and took British nationality in 1936 in order to be able to continue in the UK. So not sure I will get it as they didn’t hang around and wait until 1940 when all Jews were disenfranchised.

It seems this approach also escapes the post-Brexit change to dual nationality not being permitted for non-europeans.

I did it as back-stop as mixed feeling about becoming German, but it looks as if my French application is now further ahead and may well be granted soon.

Yes, I think you’re absolutely right and what I’ve been telling myself I should do really Stella, rather than rushing into anything again in France. It’s been torrid 2.5 years so far which saw me in hospital for a month at one stage. Although it goes a bit against my nature, I need to do things slower and give myself breathing space.

I can’t help looking at the usual estate agent sites for France though. There’s nothing to keep me in the UK anymore so France still looks appealing to me even on my own.

Every house I like though within my budget either seems to have sold quickly all of a sudden or has something major wrong with it that I’m not looking for but which was skilfully hidden by the agent’s photos….like a major trunk road. That’s happened three times now….the last about 15 minutes ago! :sweat_smile:

Ah! I thought they were giving priority to cases where people had been stripped of their citizenship during the NS-times. I also had the impression that they might be more lenient with regards to language requirements as you would be a descendant who by necessity was forced to grow up with a different language and no previous need or even necessarily exposure to German.

I would suggest you write to the BVA at their postal address in Köln and bypass the London embassy (London doesn’t like it but hey-ho) and see what they once you have told them that you have been waiting over 3 years which was the upper limit that I was ever given.

If you do get a reply, try to ‘latch on to’ that person as a point of contact. That’s what I did in the end and it work! Although she was someone who could spin out the answer to a Yes/No question into 55 minute telephone. Often I thought: “Now I know why it’s taking 3 years!” :sweat_smile:

Yes, it’s really weird this emphasis that they placed on my Mother never having taken or even applied for British citizenship. Luckily for me, despite having live in the UK for over 55 years she never did!

Good luck with the French one too. You can’t have too many! :wink:

I think you are mistaken.

Per Brexit but not now.

Euro tunnel allow petrol cans with fuel to be carried (max 10 litre size) with 80% fuel .

I don’t remember that on the pro-Leave leaflet - another win for Brexit!

Sounds to me as if you need to stop looking…
Take a deep breath and calm down.
Things will come right, but not necessarily right this minute.

I do understand just a little…
Spent 2 years frantically trying to sell our house in South to buy “just what we wanted for a new life up North”.
All to no avail and it nearly cost me my sanity.

Some years later, we really needed to move to France and our house (yes, the same one) sold in 2 days (or was it 4??) whatever… what will be, will be.

Yes, I think you are absolutely right, Stella.

I should just stop even looking at the moment. There’s just too much else to sort out and focus on first.

Thanks. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Is that a “No, I can’t take the lawnmower “ or “No, I can’t take fuel”?

Thanks