Letobird

Hi there,
My partner and I moved to Portugal in January and drove our 2003 Volvo S40 down from Ireland. It’s a right hand drive, Irish reg vehicle and we are hoping to sell It. Has anyone had any success selling their right-hand drive/foreign reg vehicles? Any advice or recommendations on the best way to go about this?
Thanks a million!
Ana

MrBife

Its worth a small fraction of its Irish value whilst still here and it will ideally need to be taken back to do a transfer to a new owner and get it legal again. If you don't want to drive it back then advertise for someone that will (or put it on a truck to Liverpool and then the ferry) and then sell it in Ireland at book price.

If it's already been here for six months then its technically illegal anyway and even a new owner stands the risk of problems.

tootlewagon

Probably best to try to sell it to someone going back to UK or Ireland. RHD cars are not worth much over here. Another option is to formally transfer it to PT plates (as a new Resident) and keep it until it falls apart, but that depends on whether you feel safe driving a RHD car over here.

gedscottish

If it's diesel you may get half decent money from a car breakers yard, as much as you'll get selling it in Ireland I would think.

tonisdad

Presume you had it tested before you set off to give you 12 months runaround before needing to worry.
After that cancel insurance before test is due to expire then reinsure and tax. Then all you are missing is test certificate....Portuguese are not bothered about test just insurance and ownership.
Regarding the 6 month here how do the Poruguese authorities know how long you have been here?
Depends if you are registered and legal over here or not or living like a lot of Brits keeping a low profile.
If you are legal and want to register vehicle believe it costs circa £1000.....Is the car worth that. To ferry back to UK will cost about £500 from Northern Spain.
I don`t know value of vehicle but looking at the year 2003 maybe best option run as long as possible then as suggested scrap. Then you have the problem if you want a vehicle buying second hand over here is way more expensive than UK.
By using UK in answers I am assuming you are meaning Northern Ireland.

EMR

Knowing some who have fallen foul of the 6 month rule don,t assume the Portuguese cannot find out.
The school run to the international schools is a favourite location to do do checks.
We regularly see GNR road checks sometimes with SEF in attendance.
Foreign reg vehicles particularly older ones are targeted.

tonisdad

In the Algarve multiple GNR can be seen very often on the roundabouts or the A22 pulling over....I find the opposite that they are not interested in British registered cars.
Why would they be the only thing that they might maybe get a result for is no insurance? They are more likely to get a result off a Portuguese pull.

Pulaski

People commonly report (across Europe, not only Portugal), that because breakers are required to verify ownership before buying a car for dismantling or crushing, and they aren't easily able to verify foreign ownership documents, that it isn't possible to easily sell a vehicle to a breaker that isn't registered locally. In other words you'd need to find an iffy breaker who will deal under the table.

EMR

Really, you need to sit and watch the checks around Lagoa, Alcantrahila, Portimao and outside the international schools.
Not forgetting the airport.
I know winter visitors who carry details of their return ferry tickets having been pulled over.
Another who was given 7 days to get his car out of Portugal having been caught on the school run.

mfesharne

Of course the obvious flaw in that is Portuguese law states that any foreign registered vehicle can only stay in PT for 6 months and that it must be taxed, tested & insured all the time it's here & if they catch a vehicle breaking that criteria they can and often do confiscate the vehicle and sell or destroy it...... to say nothing of the fact that if the vehicle has no MOT it invalidates the insurance so if the owner has an accident of any kind he's personally liable.

Oh & I think you'll find the cops don't have to prove the vehicle has overstayed but rather the owner has to prove it hasn't.

If it were me, I'd just sell it to a scrap dealer or a breaker.

EMR

There will be a conditional clause in the small print of any insurance policy along the lines of vehicles have to be roadworthy and legal in the country in which they are being driven for the policy to be valid.
Just scrap it or take it back to NI unless you want to matriculate it and ignore anything else you are told.

gedscottish

There's definitively complications, I know a guy that works at one near me which has to be one of the biggest in Portugal and I had a car lined up to go there. He said it's a pain in the ass with foreign cars to keep it all legal but they do buy them. Deal was 1300€ for a rhd UK plated 2007 VW Passat diesel.

chislenko

Quite incredibly there is a bloke near us who has three or four NI plated cars which he hires out to unsuspecting Brits. A quick look on the UK Gov site shows them all on a SORN and not permanently exported. I just wonder what would happen if one of these holidaymakers killed someone in an accident. They obviously can't be insured.

Letobird

Thanks so much for all the helpful info! I think we’ll end up selling the car for parts as that is our most economical option. We dodn’t Pay much for the car in Ireland so we’ll be happy to recover our costs and be done with it.
Thanks again everyone!

tonisdad

There is certainly some misconceptions when it comes to driving UK cars outside of UK.
UK tax and test have absolutely nothing to do with Portuguese law.
How do they prove your car is taxed now with no disc?
The only way is if they are bothered to check the UK data base if they have the means and if they are bothered. It makes no odds anyway your car is taxed to drive on UK roads.

Road tax and MoT have nothing to do whatsoever with insurance. Insurance is a civil contract to indemnify the owner/driver for losses which may be caused by and to the vehicle. This contract has nothing to do with HMRC.
It is a requirement that the vehicle be used only in a roadworthy condition.
You can't get tax without insurance. You can be insured without being taxed.