sicklyman

when I was resident in Japan (non-resident in the UK for tax purposes) and had a Japanese license, I rented a convertible in the UK on my UK license.

On a narrow country road, a driver came around the bend on the wrong side. I managed to get out of the way as best I could and was hit on the driver's door.

I informed the rental company immediately. They offered a replacement, but only if I drove 2 hours out of my way to one of their locations. I refused that as the car was driveable if a little unsightly. At least the roof came down!

The rental company, who obviously knew I'd rented from overseas (foreign address, airport pick up/drop off) didn't bat an eyelid. They duly billed me the excess as I didn't have that covered as per my rental contract and the entire claim (including my excess expense) was settled a few months later by the other driver's insurance company.

hard enough evidence that you are covered when renting in the UK on a UK license as a non-resident?

probably not...

Bahtatboy

Not. I drive my wife's car (she's UK resident) when I'm home, and arrange her annual insurance. One of the first things I ask a prospective insurer is if I can be covered as a named additional driver on my UK licence even though I'm not UK resident; in most cases the person I'm talking to has to go away and discuss with somebody else, and so far the response has been about 50:50. Those which have declined have said, or intimated, that it's not because of licence (in)validity, but because of my non-residence status. Most of the small print that I've read on policies doesn't require you to have a valid licence, merely that you are not disqualified from having a valid licence (not because of residence, but because of driving offences).

shiva

It's ridiculous that they don't know half the time. It's not like there isn't a shit load of demand for it.

Eeyore

You are fully insured as long as you used a valid licence when you hired the car. As non-UK residents, our UK licences are not valid, but our UAE ones are. As long as we use our UAE licences to hire cars in the UK, there is absolutely no problem.

So if a US resident comes to the UK on holiday and hires a car on their US licence, that's fine. That's what you're *supposed* to do.

Nope. Not even close.

If the accident had been serious enough to merit a police investigation, your non-resident status had come to light, the cops had picked up on the fact that you were driving on a UK licence and not your Japanese one, but then said "It's OK, it's doesn't matter" - *then* that would be evidence. Of the situation then, not necessarily now.

As Meow says, people "get away with" things all the time. In the case of your accident, chances are that the hire/insurance company didn't know you were a non-UK resident (the fact that you flew into the country and hired a car doesn't automatically mean that you don't spend enough time in the UK each year to qualify as a permanent resident), so they just saw a British name, British passport, British driving licence, and processed the claim as per normal.

It's when accidents are serious enough to involve police investigations, and everyone involved starts being looked at much more closely - that's when things can go from bad to worse quickly.

The bottom line, of course, is that there's no problem at all using your UAE licence to hire a car in the UK. Or indeed, anywhere else I've tried using it. So I'm really not sure why people would *want* to risk entering a legal grey area by using their UK one.

Bahtatboy

What's also interesting is that at the latest renewal of my wife's insurance, one of the company's I rang wouldn't add me as a named driver because, by their rules, I was not resident if I spent more than 9 months out of the country. There was clearly no intention on their behalf to equate tax residency to their definition on non-resident, and why should there be? Each insurance company has its own way of assessing risk.

Which makes me think: with the convoluted rules now governing non-residence status for tax purposes, why should DVLA follow HMRC's ruling, except for the fact that its the ruling of another government department?

Which raises another interesting point (to me, anyway): if someone has complied with all the residency rules for several years and is insured in UK with a UK licence, but then inadvertently stays outside of UK one day longer than "permitted" such that he becomes treated as non-resident and is therefore treated as non-resident for the full tax year, would he have been driving illegally from 6th April of that tax year? That could be a bummer.

norsk

There is one aspect of the scenario which makes this less straightforward. As a renter you don't actually have a relationship with the insurer and in fact they probably never even have access to your details. The rental company has a special policy allowing you to drive based on your documents being in order. This means that unless there is a reason for the insurance company to look closer at the details after an accident (i.e. you cause millions of pounds of damage and they really don't want to pay out) they are more than likely to allow it pass through as one of many claims on a policy.

Should you drive on a UK license as an expat on holiday in the UK? No, but there are more serious things happening in the world.

On another note I rented a car in the UK using my KSA license after I left and my visa was cancelled before I moved to Dubai. I only had that and my UK license and none of them were valid according to what you guys are saying..

Bahtatboy

You naughty boy. As punishment you need to be stripped naked, put in a very hot, steamy wooden room, and whipped with birch twigs. That'd teach you.

rachyp

I don't understand why the OP would want to bother renewing his photocard when it is not needed?

UK insurance policies state that you need to be a UK resident for them to apply (once your visa is in your passport you are no longer UK resident).
Technically RTA should have taken your UK license from you when you got the UAE one. They don't. Doesn't mean its still valid.

Don't waste your money renewing. It will stand for nothing if anything happens. Just get a new one if /when you return to the UK for good.

busybee2

thats 20 quid down the drain every 10 years!