Help - UK car in France

To back up what Mark has said regarding the COC I have been asked by ANTS to provide one as the UK reg document was deemed not to have been good enough despite it having the Euro number. I’ve applied for one from Ford France at a cost of 170 Euros and assume that once ANTS have this last piece of paper and I pay the fees a Carte Gris will be issued.

Thanks for the detailed comments - I have bookmarked this so I can find it again when we register our car in France.

(I do wonder if there is a business opportunity here to help expats register cars in France)

Many garages and insurance companies process cartes grises for change of ownership but I don’t know if any do imports.

I do believe that there is an opportunity. Like Mark Dets I am a recently added user at the ANTS website and La Poste .
Contrary to instructions provided, the FranceConnect system does not seem to be open to me. ANTS stipulates that FranceConnect must be used but when using the IDentite Numerique provided by La Poste I get “erreur 12”.
I looked into Mobile Connect et Moi, and found an interesting comment in the FAQ. FranceConnect will only work for French nationals or individuals that exist on the Securite Sociale system. As a new arrival, ( “Hi” by the way), I am not on that system.
Anyone that is can apply on behalf of someone else.
Anyone want to set themselves up as a vehicle registration agent😉

Some garages do. There is one near me (Papillaud-Billon just outside Chalais 16210). I have been looking at applying as an approved agent but have not yet found out how. I would be eligible as you have to be “in the trade” to do this.

Garages seem to have direct access to the database, they don’t have to go through a portal and faff about with codes confidentiels. I’m sure they’re carefully vetted and monitored. I don’t see Jeannot Public being given direct access.

I’m struggling to see it as a great business opportunity to offer the service through ANTS as a third party, assuming it’s legal. Garages typically charge around 30€ so you’d have to undercut that, and by the time you’ve paid URSSAF your 25% of turnover or whatever (assuming you can offer this service as a micro) plus all the other expenses of running it as a business, advertising costs and CFE and maybe business insurance in case anyone tries to sue you for anything, is it really going to be worth the hassle of patiently explaining to clients what paperwork they need and chasing them up when they don’t send the right things, etc? Because I suspect the savvy ones will do it themselves if it’s straightforward, it’s only the problem cases, or the clients who don’t know what to do, that are going to pay to use third parties. I could be wrong, maybe it would work.

I tried the 2 garages that are within 20km of us. Both did not want to get involved with registering foriegn vehicles.
The first was actually an agrigultural supplier, they are only really geared up for sorting out Carte Grise on tracteurs and paled at the thought of how much scanning and copying it would entail.
The second was a Peugeot concessionarire. They said that they had enough issues registering new cars bought from them. They had been waiting over a month for the CG for their latest customers, and had no means of chasing up their applications. They suggested I come back after a month or so to see if it was any better :frowning:
I am sure that we are not going to be the only newbies that wil face this problem; there are many who have been here for longer, and have obtained their Carte Grise before the on-line switchover.
Those of us starting now seem to be facing some unkown challenges. It does not help that the French people that we turn to have no faith in the new system.

Ah, found this today on the ANTS website. Basically, if one is not on the Securite Sociale system then a France Connect account cannot be used:
Je n’ai pas de compte France Connect ?
Pour les personnes ne pouvant s’authentifier via France Connect, qui n’ont pas la nationalité française et qui ne bénéficient pas de Sécurité sociale, vous êtes invitées à mandater une personne pour faire la démarche à votre place ou recourir à un professionnel de l’automobile

If one is new to the area it is hard to ask the neighbours to sign up for a government service to help out. Our local professionels do not want to handle the registration process for foreign vehicles. As someone pointed out earlier, it is a lot of work for little reward.
That leaves us stuck between a rock and a hard place :rage:

Yep, Just tried to access the ants site & register two UK motorbikes here, have the Laposte IDN all sorted & it won’t work.
Reply from the France connect helpline says if you want to register a car get a friend or an approved garage to do it…
Just dropped everything off with Sandy at Absolute Moto in Perigueux & she’s gonna give it a go €30 per bike…
Have had a cat with the local AXA insurance as well & she says its a nightmare even for the French, so if you’re a foreigner not a chance, Bienvenue en France

Timely update to this thread.
I gave up and toom everything in to a local bike shop, one that is shown on the ANTS website as a professionel. They were willing to give it a go, but did not expect much.

At least they were not as dismissive as the 2 nearest “professionels”. They had refused to do it, point-blank.

All of the paperwork was in order, CdC, V5C, Quitus Fiscal, Justificatif Domicile and Passport. He scanned and sent it off 3 weeks ago, we got a call on Friday to say that it had been completed and picked up a plate and confrimatin on Saturday.

So, foreigners may notvapply directly but if the paper work is in order the process does work :slight_smile:

Egos inflated by this one success we handed over similr paperwork for the remaining 5 vehicles( 4 motorbikes, one car). We will wait to see what happens in 3 weeks time.

Meantime, we now have one motorbike with UK registration and UK V5C, and with a French regsistration and Carte Grise. We should now inform DVLA thatth vehicle has been exported; or, devise a cunning James Bond style rotating number plate system :wink:

We may not be allowed to play on their new computers systems, but they do work.

I have just completed the import process for a car via ANTS. It took 4 weeks but was quite straightforward. The biggest problem people have it establishing a France Connect account!

To provide this sevice commercially you have to be a business associated to the motor trade. It is not open to just anyone.

Well as some may know that I pretty much was banging my head against the wall with ants site I went into my local garage and can safely say i have never experienced customer service like it even in the uk the garage was a Citroen dealer and they bent over backwards for me advising I needed French insurance attestation and blank cheque plus that I needed to do it all and get it to them to send off within 2 weeks to get it off before the ct became under the 18month limit I did this over a weekend and went back on the Monday 3 weeks later I have the plates on the c15 and certificate d’imatriculation in my hand painless only regret I didn’t do this at first.

Oh and I believe the online calculator is out as well as with the reg fees from garage the grand total was 193.76€ as the online calculator said 284€

That’s brilliant. Well done.

Congratulations Mark.

I had to try a few professionels before I found one that was positive enough to give it a go, and that was at a motorcycle shop. One bike down, four motorbikes and one car to go …