EMR

Your vehicle has to be road legal in the country it us being driven in.
So Portuguese law will apply if you have an accident or if you are stopped at a check point.
So Portuguese law applies.
Read the small print on your policy.
It seems some Brits think that once they leave the UK the law of the country they are in do not apply to them.
How many would drive an untaxed, no mot, dodgy insurance vehicle in the UK.

tonisdad

Government website:
Car vehicle tax rates are based on either engine size or fuel type and CO2 emissions, depending on when the vehicle was registered.
(VED) (also known as "vehicle tax", "car tax" or "road tax", and formerly as a "tax disc") is a tax that is levied as an excise duty and which must be paid for most types of vehicles which are to be used (or parked) on public roads in the United KIngdom.
In other words applicable to UK nowhere else.
I will repeat common fallacy that car insurance is void if vehicle has no tax or test.....Car has to be deemed roadworthy and free from major defect for insurance to be valid. No more no less.

How many would drive an untaxed, no mot, dodgy insurance vehicle in the UK.
As already alluded to by another poster several...also add no driving license.

BEVS

Right ! I have spent some time on my Saturday morning splitting out the pointless bickering from the bones of the topic rather than simply closing the thread.

The OP has already indicated they have made a decision based on the first few more helpful posts in this thread.

I will re-open but if this once again turns into a push and shove, I will shunt it.

liveaboard

Thanks Bev.

Red Eric

I agree with respect to the tax, especially since the PT arrangements also changed some time ago to become a matter solely between the car owner and the tax office and the traffic police no longer have any interest at all in whether vehicles are taxed.

On the matter of the MOT, however, I'm less sure. It is required in Portugal to produce the full test certificate on demand on penalty of an on the spot fine for failure to do so and foreign registered cars most certainly are stopped and inspected and their drivers on occasions fined for contraventions. Whether that would extend specifically to the proof that the car is MOT'd as required, I'm not completely sure but as the general rule is that it has to be road legal in the country of origin, being on the road without proof of MOT is not something I'd risk.

liveaboard

there's law, and then there's common practice [by police/road authorities].
To keep things practical, they check what they can.

I recently bought a big old UK caravan to put on my land; I needed to move it about 100km.
UK caravans don't have their own registrations, but PT law states that a trailer/caravan heavier than 300kg must have it's own reg and insurance to be on PT roads.

In practice, they let UK caravaners tow then on their UK tow vehicle plates and insurance just as they do at home.

I was told there's even a Brit person who moves caravans around Portugal on UK plates for a fee.
I had mine moved by a local towing firm, they have special license for this sort of thing.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out to all the armchair lawyers that law might be black and white, but real life is not.

EMR

That's somewhat different to driving an overstayed UK reg car without or without UK tax or Mot on a daily basis.
There nothing grey about that.

RichardHenshall

Strangely, it's easy for anyone with internet access to confirm whether a UK vehicle has valid tax and/or MoT test at https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-status while checking insurance validity is more difficult. https://ownvehicle.askmid.com/, for example, will probably not show up a non-UK insurance policy, which may still be valid.

Regardless of the viewpoint that a UK vehicle may not need UK road tax to be used in Portugal, I suspect that there is a transgression of UK laws in the SORN declaration of the vehicle (that isn't off the road) and/or the export of the vehicle without declaration of export. Clearly there are limitations in the UK authorities' ability to police the use of untaxed vehicles in other countries, not helped by https://www.gov.uk/report-untaxed-vehicle requiring a postcode for the location of the vehicle, if the anonymous report is made online!

tonisdad

That website used to be good fun when it stated which class a car was taxed under. It showed you duty exempt.....disability.
The person down the street who always had a car less than 3 years old, never had a days work for as long as you could remember. Never missed a session down the pub.
You grafted 5+days a week but they had a better lifestyle than you.
Then you realised why.

BEVS

Perhaps it was leased.

I think I must be having a bit of a day. I cannot see how this relates to the subject matter of overseas vehicles in Portugal.

So. Given my beady eyes are on this after the previous derail

tonisdad

Perhaps it was but you have to receive the disability benefit to lease.

Oh did not realise this was a forum where you have to go in a straight line and not divert.
I tend to think topics wander about...That`s what makes for an interesting conversation.....Never mind.

BEVS

For most all topics it is fine to have thread drift. However this one has already had to be moderated because of pointless bickering which , incidentally , some posters had reported.

Top Tip:
If you have an issue, PM me
If you can add something informative and helpful to this thread then you are free to do so.