We are thinking of buying a secondhand car but does it have to be registered to the department we are living in, can anyone help please.
Roz
One more thing, if you buy a car with the new style number plates & it comes with an "out-of-state" number you can buy a sticker with your department number to put over it if you want.
Incidentally, failure to re-register a car within the month allowed means that you are comitting a class 4 offence & if stopped by the Gendarmes using such a car on the road it will leave you open to a 750 euro fine.
OK, a friend just left the house. He had just bought a 20 year old Citroen, always garaged, with 50k on the odometer. Looks like new. He had one of the new plates and explained the rationale (?) behind it. I am up to speed now. No more yellow plates for the rear either.
you would have, Don, if you changed the details/number plate before oct 2009. The new style plates are two letters, three numbers, two letters. The old plates were up to 4 numbers, two letters, two numbers (the département). There were slight variations towards the end where départements ran out of possibilities and used three letters in the middle! the new number plates stay with the car for life, like in the UK, you don't even need to display the "correct" département or région ;-)
Weird... I still have the same style plate that originally came with the car and its the same style as the plates on my neighbor's cars... and he buys high line new cars like we buy groceries, sometimes two or three a year. What does a "new style" plate look like?
not possible, the new type came in only a few years ago, 2009 to be exact, I was one of the first AQ-XXX-XX. I changed several number plates just before that on the old system when moving between the Aveyron and the Cantal. ;-)
When I first arrived I purchased a car in Gers, although I was living in Tarn et Garonne. I drove it for over a year on the original plates until I was stopped at a traffic check point. The plates didn't match the number on the new registration. I was cited and had to change the plates, even though they were the new type. That was 9 years ago. I still have that car. It just keeps running.
You have one month to notify a change of address or ownership ;-)
hi Roz
you can buy a vehicle from any other department and I believe the current regulation states you have two months to re register in the new department
It is very much in your interests to re register the vehicle as I found to my cost - I had completely forgotten to re register within that time and found about 9 months later a speeding fine posted to my 'new' address. They took a chance and guessed from their records (eventually) that I lived at this address. Unfortunately I had been sent two reminders as well as the original demand at the the previous address with two 'majorations' of 10% each added to the original speeding summons. The new owners (dutch !) hadn't bothered to forward the mail to my new address which was only 3 kms down the road by the way and my signed paper at the post office, automatically forwarding mail to my new address had expired so be warned !
exactly, Ben ;-) New plated cars and now in the Tarn but keeping the "12" as OH and the kids are aveyronnais...!
you have to re-register the car and at that point you'll either be given a new number if the car has the old style number plate, or you'll keep the existing one if it's the new style and, if you're not fussed, you don't even have to change the plates/département number. My OH is aveyronnaise, we now live in the tarn (81), I've kept my 12 (aveyron where we were before) and she still hasn't bothered changing her 46 (we bought the car in the Lot). Both cars obviously obviously have the new style plates...!
not quite, Sheila, the car you bought was had an old style plate so it had to be changed, that would have been the case if it were an old plated 11. You could have asked for any other number on the plate, and the region that goes with that département, if you don't ask then you get the number of your département. I'm still driving on an unchanged new style plate with a 12 even though we're now in the tarn. Under the old system you had to change the plate when changing département - a pain when you have two cars and a motorbike in the family - we moved from the cantal back to the aveyron, back into the cantal then back to the aveyron before coming here to the tarn...!
The new, European system for license plates is in effect as of april 15th 2009 for new cars and as of October 15th for used cars. Meaning that if you buy a car after those dates they'll be equipped with a license plate that belongs to the car (and stays with it if it's sold afterwards). The departmental prefixes will disappear, but have been replaced by the little shield on the right of the plate. If you don't specify it, it will bear the number of the department in which your home address, indicated when applying for the "carte grise" is situated. But you can ask to have that changed to any department you like but need to specify that before the plates are printed, or have a new set of plates printed.....
So if you're extremely fond of Paris, but live in, let's say, the Aude, you can still have that little Parisian star on your plate (don't know if the locals will appreciate that though ;-))
The "old " style number plates incorporated the departmental number. When the government introduced a centralised rather than a departmental based registration system there was considerable disquiet. Generations of citizens have learnt by rote all the départemnts of France and their numeros mineralogique. French men and women can be extremely protective of theiir département and to see this disappear from their registration plates was a tragedy. Reluctantly the government permitted registration plate to carry in very small characters the departmental origin of the vehicle. This however has no legal force. The vehicle is registered to a national database and contains no departmental reference in its number. Older vehicles with a departmental suffix will gradually change their registration mark as they change hands when they will be incorporated into the national system. When you acquire a vehicle from the old system or the new you may if you wish have your plates made up to incorporate the optional (in small letters) numero mineralogique of your département which may be superimpose or not on a symbol of your region. Strangely what you may not do is to stick a new departmental number on top of the old as this constitutes changing the plate even though it forms no official/legal part of the registration number.
Must be different down here in the Aude, Andrew. I bought a second-hand car which had been registered in Pyrenees Orientales (66). I took all the paperwork to the Mairie and paid the fees, and I received a Certificat d'Immatriculation with new registration number. For example, the old registration number was xxx XX 66 indicating the car was registered in that département. When I received the new Certificat, the reg no was BP-xxx-xx (sorry don't want to give the real numbers here) which included no reference to départemente number. I had to order new plates which gave the number and also a little "11" to the right. I hope this makes sense.
There is no need to have the département number or even the 'F' on the new number plates, the old department specific plates will disappear as the cars are re registered under the newish system. As for registering the car, for a price you can do the business on line nowadays.
Thank you Andrew, just to clarify (I'm a woman bear with me) if we live in dept 53 and buy a car with dept 44 on it's plates we can legally drive it in dept 53 but must re-register the carte grise?
You can buy a car from anywhere, import one if you want too. If it's an old number plate you'll have to change it regardless if it's the same département and that's always been the case. If it's the new number plate - nothing to do with the age of the car but the last time there was a change of owner details, then you just change the owner details/carte grise but the number plate stays the same. you can choose the département and region shown on the new style number plates, which rather defeats the purpose of it!
Thank you Sheila, that was what I thought but I thought if it was already registered in another department we might get away with it, but this is France I guess.
Hi Roz. Not 100% sure, but I think if the car is older than 6 or 7 years, it will have to be re-registered in the département in which you are now living. My village Mairie was able to help with the paperwork. Other members might have more up to date info but I think it depends on the age of the car. If the existing registration number contains your département number, it most likely will have to be re-registered, and your new registration will not contain the département number but this number will be shown in smaller figures to the right of the new reg no.