Selling U.K. Registered van in France

don’t stress Mark its forums for you, the debate it not to you but between others.

Its very difficult area to navigate.

just make sure who ever buys it fills in the new documents for the vehicle.

A British resident on holiday in France is treated differently from a British citizen resident in France. The former can use their UK reg car while on holiday in France, but there are limits on how long they may stay, and their car must be completely legal in the U.K. all of the time. A French resident has one month to register their car or face a fine. It’s all written clearly on the official sites.
The idea that it’s perfectly legal to drive a U.K. reg car without road tax is too dangerous to be considered to be a joke. It’s all about responsibility, if individuals are happy to ignore the regulations and face the consequences, fine, just don’t tell others on an open forum that it’s legal.

With respect David some of us who have tried to comply with the letter of the law have been thwarted by the new system. As soon as possible I organised a CT, change of headlights etc and visited the Prefecture only to be told to bugger off. I submitted my application on line the same day and waited and waited going beyond the supposed one month limit. What should I have done, not used the van and stopped work?

No one including you can explain why 0000’s of UK reg’d vehicles (insured and with a CT) continue to be used on French roads when the law is so clear that they are illegal. Please don’t tell me it’s because the gendarmes can’t be bothered, the law is the law is it not?

I did always heard that starting the process within a month was fine, if the process took longer that was out of your hands.
My only answer to your other question is arrogance and an attitude towards responsibility that I don’t understand. The rules are simple, simple people choose not to follow the rules.

Dear oh dear. Are seriously saying it’s the flics’ fault that people break the law ??? Maybe in a police state that would make sense, and I guess that if and when personal responsibility really does become a thing of the past, that’ll be the only way to avoid anarchy. But we’re not there yet thank goodness, and most people do choose to the right thing because it is the right thing, not because they don’t have any choice.

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I’m saying that IF the law is so clear why are insurance companies continuing to insure illegal vehicles and why are the gendarmes failing to get them off the road?

Because insurance companies are interested solely in maximising business, ie collecting premiums, they are not remotely interested in enforcing the law because that’s not their job and there is no profit in it for them; and gendarmes have more important and interesting things to do than chase round after petty offending Brits ?
The law says you should carry a high viz and a triangle, are you saying the flics should stop every vehicle and check that they can put their hands on their high viz without getting out of the vehicle?

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What’s your take on the situation Tim? Please tell us.

Sorry Anne but I just don’t buy that. There would be an almighty storm if a Brit in a UK reg’d car wiped out a bunch of people and it was found that his/hers insurance was invalid simply because the vehicle should have been re-registered. The driver and the insurance company would both be seen as culpable and would be prosecuted, what insurance company would risk that?

As you know I really don’t have an opinion.:wink:

It’s something that you have brought up so you must have an opinion. From what I’ve read on forums and seen on the official sites the owners of many of those cars are breaking the law and getting away with it. That does not make it right. I was brought up to believe that it was foolish to risk breaking the law when it came to registration and roadworthyness. I wouldn’t trust my vehicle insurance to stand if the vehicle wasn’t properly registered, it would give the insurance company the biggest get out clause possible.

Tim, it’s not like a vehicle is either 100% legal or it’s 100% illegal, any more than it is in the UK. There are a number of legal obligations and to be fully legal you have to comply with all of them. In the UK - registered with DVLA with an up to date address, current insurance, current road tax, current MOT. If you have some things but not others then it’s not fully legal. Same in France - needs to be registered with the prefecture to your current address, insured and ct’d. If one of these elements is missing then you are complying with some laws but you are not complying with others. I don’t get how that can be so hard to understand. The issue here is that this particular vehicle appears to be illegal because it’s not correctly registered in France. The fallback position would be that it’s awaiting registration, but in that case it would need to be road legal in its country of registration ie the UK and it’s not road legal there either because on the DVLA database it will show as not taxed and not MoT’d, and if it has French insurance it’ll be showing as not insured as well.

In an accident, third parties will be paid out regardless if there is insurance in force, suggesting they won’t is scaremongering. However, depending on the small print, if on investigation the insurers find you’ve broken the T&Cs of the policy then they can claim the money back from you. But third parties will be covered, that’s not an issue, unless there is no insurance in force.

Come on Dom, the wink should have been a clue.

Having spent 000’s getting two UK reg’d vehicles re-registered it used to bother me like crazy seeing others ignore the rules but just like people who live ‘under the radar’ I don’t care any more because life’s too short and if the gendarmes aren’t bothered why should I.

I have sympathy with the OP because he has pretty much done everything right IMO yet according to many he’s breaking the law and should take the van off the road right now.

My son bought a car here in the middle of December but it took ANTS seven weeks to process the ownership change, supposedly after a month of the sale the ownership reverts back to the previous owner (if the paperwork isn’t done) so technically he was driving a car that didn’t belong to him, should he have left the car on the drive and walked the 10 km to work?

I moved here with almost 12 months of U.K. insurance and MOT and the best part of 6 months uk road tax with the absolute intention of being resident here…I knew of the one month “rule” and the 8 month “rule”…on the day I signed after a gruelling 16 plus hour journey from the U.K. and arriving 4 hours late at the notaire I thankfully hugged my vendors hugged the notaire hugged the by now very tired agent who just wanted to get home to his wife and kids and clutching my keys drove to my new home and my new life and promptly bumped into a local driving in the opposite direction…the only word I understood out of all the expletives was “gendarmies”…I asked him to follow me home and he got his friend who spoke a little english to drive down and translate on my driveway …Not the best way to meet the locals I admit…My uk insurance company eventually paid out albeit 6 months later and I had protected my no claims discount…In the meantime it took me longer than a month but less than 8 months to get Brittany number plates for my uk car and switch from my uk insurer to a French insurer…in the interim there was possiby a small gap where I had neither uk Road tax nor carte Grise…,I didn’t ask to be reimbursed from my uk insurer as I was just glad that they had finally paid out to the local I bumped into…I bumped into his friend later in Super U and asked him the best place to buy paint and he gave me directions…It’s not cut and dry…I have friends who owned a home in France for many years and to all intents and purposes lived in France and yet spent 6 months of the year at their home in uk…they had both a uk van on uk plates and a French registered left hand drive car that stayed here whilst they were back in England…all I know from my experience is that I wouldn’t want to be driving anywhere with no insurance…x :slight_smile:

@Anna IMO insurance companies should not issue cover for more than one month to UK reg’d cars which would end the problem immediately.

As for 3rd party cover, that indeed is the principle but just imagine the Brit killed or injured several people, the payout could be in the millions. Do you think the insurance company would just go ‘hey ho’ and pay up and then continue to insure UK reg’d vehicles?

I will always comply with the law and would never tell people not to BUT I can see why many flout the rules.

Did your son buy a French registered car then register it in his name? If so the previous owner will have had to have recorded the sale via ANTS before you son could start the process. Having done that there would be no way that the ownership could have reverted to the previous owner. Once the process was underway your son had done all that was required. I see no problem.
The OP is selling a car that is not legal to be used in the road in France. Once it has been registered it will be fine. I hope he finds a buyer as he has been totally honest about the situation. The fact remains however that the car cannot be used legally and will need transporting to its new owner’s home. It might not be convenient but why should i5 be?

You might see why people flout the rules. I have no respect for them. What they are required to do is not difficult, they do not have an excuse. Breaking the law is easy, thank God most people have a moral compass.

Most agents don’t these days. But there are still rogues, mainly in areas with high concentrations of Brits for obvious reasons. Yes it would solve the problem but they’re insurance agents not law enforcers. Maybe one day a law will be brought in to compel them to not offer longer than x months cover, and then wouldn’t that make life difficult for people who are in good faith but hit genuine problems getting re-registered, such as sometimes happens with motorhomes.

My son did everything by the book, the seller was most insistent that the paperwork had to be done within a month hence my comment. The ANTS system should have made things quick and easy but instead it’s just lengthened the process IMO.

If I was the OP I’d be pretty pissed off being told to take the vehicle off the road when he probably sees UK cars driving about everyday.

With the ANTS system you can prove that you’re at least trying to re-register, show that to the insurance company and they can give you further cover.