m00rse

Thanks for this, useful to know.

christmasoompa

BiP has quoted the relevant part above. It says that to use the online form to renew you need 'to be a resident of Great Britain'.

This is the response from the DVLA to another forum member who queried the residency requirement - "Changes to British legislation resulting in the implementation of the Second EC Directive on Driving Licences (91/439/EEC) since 1 January 1997, have required that driving licences are granted only to drivers who are resident in this country."

So you could look up that EC Directive for a bit of light reading on the subject!

HTH.

sicklyman

waaaaaait a minute... let's all hang fire until after March 19th 2019 and the EC Directive won't apply to us.

As has been mentioned, "residency" varies in its definition and it's likely that as we on here are probably most familiar with the HMRC definition we are assuming that this is how DVLA also define it.

Perhaps someone should write to them and ask what qualifies as residency e.g. bank account, passport, home ownership, domicile etc. We may well find that they are happy with people who have those are in fact resident as far as DVLA are concerned.

Millhouse

Apart from the Great Repeal Act that will write all this shit into British law.

BritInParis

EUR-Lex - 32006L0126 - EN - EUR-Lex

FriendlyExpat

No, you are fine, provided your paper license remains valid! The advice above only applies to photo card licenses.

FriendlyExpat

I'm very interested - please explain further.

The offence of not updating your photo card every 10 years derives from Section 99 paragraphs 2(a), 3 and 5 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/99).

This says in a roundabout way that unless a photo card license is surrendered, it must be updated every 10 years.

Also note paragraph (4) which provides that it is mandatory to update the photo card licence if the address ceases to be correct.

In both cases, failing to comply with the obligation to surrender or update the card (without reasonable cause) is an offence. There is no exemption for stopping driving or leaving the UK.

I suppose you could argue that stopping driving or leaving the UK is "reasonable cause" for not renewing / surrendering the card, but that seems a risky angle to me. Is that what you were relying on? Or something else?

FriendlyExpat

That link is to an EU directive which (since it is not a regulation) is not directly effective in the UK. The applicable residency test when renewing your license is set out in section 99(7AA) of the 1988 Road Traffic Act (but it's basically the same):

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga...52/section/97A

To paraphrase the test:

"[DVLA] may not grant a new licence [following surrender of an outdated photo card] ... unless, [when the new photo card is issued], the [licence holder] is [in the UK and not an illegal immigrant] and is also normally resident in Great Britain (or (ii) [has been lawfully studying in] Great Britain [for the previous 6 months].)"

BritInParis

The RTA 1988 does not apply outside the UK. If you left the UK, you would also leave its legal jurisdiction. It's also not possible to place a foreign address on a UK licence as you are required by law to be ordinarily resident in the UK for a driving licence to be issued. You can continue to use a UK licence as an overseas resident with your last previous UK address providing it remains valid and the local authorities recognise your UK licence, e.g. another EU member state.

Part III of the RTA 1988 refers to the granting of licences authorising a person to drive a particular class of motor vehicle on the road. If you do not drive then ergo it will not apply to you. You cannot be fined for not holding a licence if you do not drive. Likewise the police cannot pull you over and fine £1,000 for not updating your driving licence address if you do not drive.

Yes, christmasoompa mentioned the relevant EC directive, but as you point out it was implemented in S.97A of the same act.

FriendlyExpat

You say:

But I was querying:

Separately:

Yes and no. You could obviously still get a fine for not renewing your licence while outside the UK. If this happened (admittedly unlikely) you could safely ignore it while outside the UK because no-one is going to try and extradite you. But if you ever *do* come back to the UK, it's still valid.

BritInParis

Refer to the second paragraph.

FriendlyExpat

Even then it's not clear cut (in the UK), because there are lots of laws, regulations and case law around contractual invalidation of insurance and each case requires detailed analysis on the facts.

FriendlyExpat

You mean this?

Your interpretation is not correct.

The relevant paragraphs in section 99 refer to the "licence holder". Whether you are actually using the licence is irrelevant. See for example Section 99(4) RTA 1988:

"Where the name or address of the licence holder as specified in a licence ceases to be correct, its holder must forthwith surrender the licence ..."

FriendlyExpat

My point was HMRC can easily notice if a non-resident renews their license, and can use this fact to attack their non-resident status. Which could be annoying.

And has happened.

Yes to the second. As to the first, I like being anonymous on here and there are not that many lawyers in the region...so...draw your own conclusions based on the quality (or not ) of my comments.

BritInParis

The law states you cannot be issued a UK licence if you are not a UK resident ergo you cannot be fined for not updating your licence with a foreign address as that itself would be illegal. If you returned to the UK to live and you had the same address then no problem. If you returned to the UK to live at a new address then you would need to update your licence.

That's fine if you decide to ignore the rest of the relevant legislation.