peterfc

Hi Pilou

No i went to the English consulate in Porto but it's moved now.

All paperwork is in Portuguese but if you look careful you can see what has to be done and all you need to do is copy from one form to another. For example Get the Certificate of Conformity in Portuguese and just copy from one to another.

Questions i couldn't answer i left and when i went back to the Customs office the lady filled the odd ones i couldn't do.

Go for a day out to your local Customs office and ask, however i am told that the ones in the Algarve area are not so helpful.

Peter

Pilou

Thanks, Peter!!!

Pilou

We contacted somebody to help us with the import of our car. Fee for the assistance is EUR 750 plus the standard costs for importing a car.
The value of our car is EUR 5,000, so hopefully we find somebody who asks less than this.
In fact most of the work needs to be done by us anyway: gathering all the necessary docs is a lot of work. We already bought the COC form: 300 EUR at Volkswagen.

The most difficult thing is the certificate from the consulat. We as Dutch need to go to Lisbon to the Spanish ambassy to ask this, because we live in Spain. Will they be able to give this to a non-spanish person?
We need to drive from Portimao to Lisbon with a very old dog of 60 kg who is unable to walk more than 200 meters. because we know nobody in this new country we need to take him with us to get this certificate.

What I don't like about this is that we have proof of a spanish tax return as resident in Spain, we have proof of a residence permit, of monthly bills of electricity etc. Why is this not enough???? I just don't understand.

We don't want to get rid of this car, because it is a car we need and difficult to find. We bought this car 2 years ago second hand and we spend 4000 EUR on repairs ........

mfesharne

€750 to handle the matriculation (if that's what you mean) is waaaay high.

Going rate in my area is about €400 per vehicle plus the inspection fee of about €125.

And yes, "proof of a residence permit, of monthly bills of electricity etc" should be enough & I'd suggest you find another agent because you're paying him to make your life easier & he obviously isn't doing that for you.

Pilou

The problem is that the government asks this certificate. We will try to ask this certificate in Spain just before emigrating.

Loafing Along

You will need a certificate from the local government in Spain which clearly states "Salida para Portugal". The process is "Baja del Padron".I did exactly this and here paid €400.- for the Customs agent

Loafing Along

There is a very good agent in Faro -Faotir Ltda, much closer to you and you should not need to go to Lisbon.

mfesharne

Another problem is the country suffers from variable bureaucracy where individual civil servants interpret the rules any way they like & using an agent sometimes allows for a few short cuts on that.

In my case, I & my car came in from South Africa & I used an agent to do the matriculation & I wasn't even asked to provide the document we're discussing here.

Pilou

Thank you so much Loafing Along!
Very good info for me!!!!!

Loafing Along

One detail. Assuming your car has a Spanish registration when you have completed the process remember you have to personally do the paperwork with the DGT ( Trafico ) to cancel the Spanish registration. I failed to do this and got charged an extra year's Spanish Road Tax although the car had been transferred to Portugal it was still recorded in Spain. The process is simple and not expensive just another bureaucratic hurdle down the track

Pilou

Thanks for reminding me! We will go to Trafico as soon as our spanish car has portugese plates. We don't dare to do this before .....

Loafing Along

This is the phrase on my "Volante de Padron"

Haciendo constar que se traslado su residencia de forma definitiva a Portugal

Pilou

Many thanks!

Did you go to the Hacienda or to the Ayuntament (where the Padron is) for this? Or to the Policia Extranjeria (where we got our spanish residence permit)?

Loafing Along

To the Ayuntamiento