Car bought without certificat d'immatriculation or carte grise

Hi - I’ve done something really stupid and bought a french car without the certificat d’immatriculation or carte grise. I only have the receipt of sale from the garage I bought it from in Ireland. Can anyone help with a solution to my problem?

How is it a French car if you bought it in Ireland? Does it have a French numberplate? Are you in France now?

I was going to ask the same thing

You could have bought yourself a fair bit of hassle. Unless it is over 30 years old you will find it almost impossible to register unless you have a paper trail linking the previous registered owner to yourself. That paper trail cannot include a non-French garage.

Go back to the Irish garage to seek a solution.

Is it possible to register it in Ireland, then transfer it to France?

Note I know nothing nothing about the process in either country so this is pure blue sky thinking.

Most of the situations like this that I’ve read about have been with French registered cars bought from U.K. garages. There the simplest solution has been to register the car in the UK, export it to France and re-register it there. That of course adds significantly to the cost and comes as a shock to the buyers who thought that they’d bought the perfect car to take to France.
I don’t know if importing and registering a car in Ireland is as straightforward as it is in the UK but the garage that sold it should be able to assist.

Can you not just drive the Irish car in France… Or is there a time limit? How would this be inforced? Would your neighbors shop you?

We have a French family living near me. They have both an English plate and a French plate cars.

As I read it, the OP has no registration documents, just a bill of sale

They cannot drive the car anywhere with no Carte Gris but the real problem is that their application to register it in France will be rejected because they do not have the correct paperwork. There are no short cuts, they need the CG and other paperwork signed by the previous registered owner.

A slight change of angle on this - if the garage did not have the Carte Gris, does this mean that the garage did not actually have the Title to be able to sell the car?

I’m afraid I would assume a car with no papers was as dodgy as can be, probably stolen, and I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. If it is above board (how???) I can see registering it being a complete nightmare or even impossible.

Absolutely so the car should not have been sold - as the seller didn’t own it.

Basically no. If they can put the buyers in touch with the previous owners then the situation should be able to be resolved. The paper trail between the previous registered owner and the buyer has to be established. A French garage can act as a go-between but a foreign garage cannot, even if they have the Carte Gris.

I see that @Jennifer_O_Donoghue has not posted any more information on the subject of the “French car” :thinking::roll_eyes:

It’s hard to believe that anyone would buy a car to which no registration documents of any kind were attached.

Isn’t it more likely that the car is a French marque and comes with RoI registration papers, an Irish plate, and LHD? Who would buy a car with no plates?

The cars that I’ve read about have had (French) plates and most of them have even had a Carte Gris. The trouble is that the link between the previous registered owner and the buyer has to be established by the correct paperwork.

But then it is an Irish car not a French one and the papers will be the Irish equivalent of the carte grise etc.
I don’t really understand the situation which is why I asked a couple of questions right at the start (which remain unanswered).

3 Likes

Yes she @vero did. Listen up peeps! :ear::hugs:

Perhaps a wind up? Hand gesture in photo is intriguing…

[quote=“JJones, post:19, topic:27061”]
Hand gesture in photo is intriguing…[/quote]

She is brandishing a pair of chopsticks, is there some arcane significance attached to that?