There’s lots of us, myself included, that haven’t changed licences when we really know we should have…
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And there’s lots of us who are biting our tongues very, very hard because that’s what we told our other halves to do years ago!
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Yeah yeah, told you so, keep biting… 
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I tried and got nowhere but I’m a special case apparently. 
You don’t need to wait until August and can renew it now - if you have not yet completed your WARP as many have not, then the issue of residence is murky as you would still be UK tax resident until you declare otherwise. Not that I believe for a second that DVLA would check that, BTW. Of course you would effectively be renewing it for only 4 months if the exchange is sorted before year end, but I would not be at all surprised to see this extend into 2022 as an extension is something that is in the French government’s gift, whereas an agreement is something else entirely. Of course we can’t rule out British shabby treatment of French citizens being a problem and in fact it is pretty much to be expected - not a good look in an election year for a non reciprocal arrangements favouring British citizens in France.
Not sure how long John has been here, but even if he has not yet been here a tax year, presumably has sent HMRC form P85 and has received his S1 from the DVLA? And both now have him linked to his French address?
So not that hard for the DVLA identify he is non-resident with more joined up systems these days.
Maybe I have just absorbed the French approach to signing an “attestation sur l’honneur” but I would be very uncomfortable signing a false declaration - and they do ask you to confirm you are resident during the process.
But maybe the small risk is worth it…?
can’t remember if the WA continued with the European Arrest Warrant? 
UK now has a fast track surrender system like Norway. And like Norway some EU countries have opted out…so John will need to move to Germany.
Or get his collar felt on a return visit to the UK
This whole licence thing is very worrying, and what seems to have been missed is that it has been impossible to get an exchange done since early 2019…we settled here in August of that year so is hardly my fault.
Also what position would a person be in who lost their UK licence and needed a replacement whilst they were waiting for the exchange to go through?
How have people managed who been here many years, as some have, when they have had to get uk replacements because of things like this and in fact we know a couple of people who have had no problems when this has arisen.
Have you been watching too many episodes of “The Chase” by any chance?
What you describe is theoretically possible, as is the tracing of someone by their cellphone use or even eavesdropping on forums like this. (BTW I assume you mean S1 from NHSBSA not DVLA)?
If John were an international terrorist then this can happen, but the effort and cost has to be proportionate to the “offense” In this case John (and many others) is potentially being deprived of what was his right by the very government whose duty it is to protect the rights of its citizens. It may well be that they pull their fingers out and agree what scores of other countries already have done and the ability to exchange his licence will be restored before his UK licence has expired.
The fact is that until this is known he faces some difficult choices and this is one of them. Come September if this is not resolved then he can take a French test, he can stop driving, or he can buy or rent a little sans-permit car, but pointing fingers and making jokes does not help him nor anybody else.
Don’t know, I exchanged mine years ago and presume that’s what anyone else would have done 
Bit of a pain for all those arriving recently though, Brexit really has messed things up big time for a lot of you 
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at a time when everyone was saying “ah, you don’t need to change your licence - it’s British and Britain waves the rules” we changed ours to French too (c10 years ago) after we arrived in France with the intention of staying. Best decision ever (like applying for the CdS UE at a time well in advance of Brexshit). Saved shed loads of hassle.
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Thankyou for that friendly response as I can do without added worry.
Sure it’s a small risk, but some of the government systems are now joined up so it is also theoretically possible that the DVLA is too. So no chasing required (don’t know what the chase is…) , but possibility of an automatic flag popping up. It’s better to know the risks and accept them, then not. After that it’ a personal choice, albeit a difficult one,
The Chase is/was a crappy TV reality show, in which contestants have to evade detection and capture and the captors utilise CCTV, credit card use, telephone use and etc to track them down. All very far fetched but theoretically possible and the sort of technology that does indeed get used in murder enquiries such as this poor woman who was murdered in London recently.
While it is impressive that these things can happen, in practice government IT systems often have problems communicating internally, let alone across departments and there are laws that prevent misuse. There are exceptions to these but they need to be proportionately applied and this is hardly likely to be granted to checking if somebody’s driving licence has been applied for strictly according to the rules - and many of us are in a kind of limbo at the moment where we are, as St Theresa said, “Citizens of nowhere” where the rules are not so clear cut.
I am not recommending or condoning anything, but if John were to proceed IMHO the only way he would be likely to be detected would be if some noble person were to report him. Many of us are between a rock and a hard place right now, as a result of being failed by our own government.
If he still has a credit rating in the UK then prob ok…as that’s what is used to verify address.
which is the stupid thing IMO… my UK credit rating is probably zilch (been out of UK for over 10 years) but probably more financially stable now than we have ever been…
On the other hand if you have property in the UK along with a bank account, credit card and savings then you’d have an excellent credit rating.
When I used to monitor these sorts of things, I found that I had a poor-ish credit rating. It didn’t make sense until I discovered that the credit rating was (mainly?) to do with how you pay off debt. Before I left the UK i hadn’t had a mortgage there for many years as I lived in a titchy house, and I hadn’t ever taken out any loans and also didn’t use my credit card. No debt repayment history for years and years…