jack_russell

I have a problem and wonder if anyone had a similar experience.

I have a holiday home in Alpes Maritimes and keep a car there which turned 3 years old during
the lockdown and thus due its first MOT. I couldn't travel to bring the car back to the UK
so now it has no MOT and because of that I am unable to renew the insurance.

So, as far as I can see I have the following options and would be grateful if anybody
has been in the same situation and what they did.

Drive the car back to the UK when I am able to and get a MOT test, possibly in Dover
although as far as I can tell, the law does not specify how far one can travel to a
pre-arranged MOT test although the police might think differently. The problem here would
be arranging insurance for the journey, does anyone know of any insurance companies
who would offer temporary cover for such a trip.

Alternatively, get the car re-registered in France (thus exporting from the UK). Not being
a French resident means I cannot register it myself so there seems to be two options. Find a
French resident we can trust and who is willing to register the car for me or set up a
company in France and 'sell' the car to my own company. Has anyone done this and what
are the tax issues both now and in the future.

For the actual export I know that I have to obtain a CoC and have the headlamps adjusted
and the registration process is now online rather than having to go a local office. I could
then obtain insurance from a French company.

EuroTrash

I guess it depends what your plans are for the car.
If you want to leave it in France, putting it on French plates might make sense.
If you're planning on taking it back to the UK, putting it on French plates makes no sense.
I have never heard of being unable to renew the insurance because a car has no MoT. I didn't know the insurers checked. After all it is perfectly possible to insure a car that is off the road (isn't it?). Road tax on the other hand, cannot be renewed if there is no current MoT. Are you sure you don't mean tax, not insurance?

dmu

Hi, and welcome to the forum!
In France, due dates for C.T.s during Covid have been extended without sanctions. Is there a similar provision in the UK? In which case you can come over as from today and drive your car back to the UK for its MOT (unless it isn't insured, of course....).
Be warned that, although we're free to travel within France, there's a curfew from 20h00 to 06h00 and you wouldn't be able to drive during that time (the "Attestation" carried by night workers and for other legitimate reasons wouldn't cover such a journey and you'd get a fine). Restaurants, etc.. are still closed and any hotels open would only be able to provide room-service breakfast.
Keep an eye on the ongoing thread "Transiting through France during Covid" for up-to-date info, but the above info is the latest and if it's changed due to the Situation, it would be for the worse...
Hope this helps!
P.S. Why not ask your Insurance Agent? I doubt that a French Insurance Co. would give you coverage for such a short time...

calman014

The correct way is to trailer the car back to UK and have it MOT'd.

EuroTrash

Calman is right of course.
To be 100 per cent correct you would not keep a UK reg car in France in the first place. DVLA doesn't allow it, France doesn't allow it and not many UK insurers will accept a French postcode as the address where the vehicle is normally parked overnight.
Doesn't stop people doing it but bending the rules tends to lead to awkward situations.

Listen Very Carefully

All I can say is that if the OP has an accident he could well be left with a huge bill for third party hospital treatment car repairs etc as the uk insurance company will walk away .....
Get it re registered in France It is the law

dmu

I've just woken up to the fact that the OP has been keeping a UK-registered car at his holiday home for the last 3 years. Does his Insurance company know that the address where it has been habitually kept isn't in the UK? As said, legally, this isn't possible, and I take back my advice - best get the car conveyed back to the UK by a professional, and then keep/sell it there. For visits, buy a French car on the spot, taking out a French limited-mileage Insurance (would that be possible for a non-EU citizen after Brexit?), or hire one each time....

EuroTrash

Or just re-register it here as he suggested in his first post, if he's planning on leaving it here after Brexit.
If he has a holiday home there shouldn't be a problem.
There is no need to ask a full time resident to register it in their name, which could create problems for them (including with the fisc, if they take it into their heads to suspect it's an expensive gift that hasn't been declared, or to wonder how they paid for it. France's public info system is very joined up compared to the UK and a person's tax records/vehicle records/etc are all linked). Setting up a business in France just so that you can register a car, makes no sense whatsoever. Not sure what the rules are about non residents setting up businesses in France and in any case if the OP has only a UK passport he would not have the automatic right to pursue any economic activity in France after 31.12.20.
Either do as dmu says, get that one transported back to the UK and buy a French car, or re-register it in France.

FriendlyExpat

You can insure the car with no MOT provided you tell the insurers what you are doing. You can also drive any disatance in England to and from a pre-booked MOT test even if the current MOT has expired, provided you don't deviate (even toilet breaks, food stops or rest). A big risk is that if your car fails the MOT with a fault classed as dangerous, you cannot then drive it again until fixed.

Note that if the car is unroadworthy, you cannot drive it with or without an MOT so if stopped, prepare for the police to have a look around to see if any obvious problems they can do you for and carry robust evidence of the fact that the MOT is prebooked and that you're driving on a direct route (something like a google maps print out and an email confirmation from the garage would be ideal).

You also need to separately check what the rules are in France but in practice it should be fine.

Listen Very Carefully

Friendly Expat- The problem is that the vehicle is not legal in France It should have been re registered as soon as the OP decided to keep it permanently at his French address

EuroTrash

For info, this is the French law on continuous insurance, I do not know if it would be applied to a non resident owner of a foreign registered vehicle on French soil but if it does apply and if the insurance has lapsed, the OP would do well to get it insured again asap regardless of whether or not he will be moving it in the near future because the penalties for owning an uninsured vehicle that is in a driveable condition are eye-watering
https://www.service-public.fr/partic...sdroits/F23499

dmu

Good link!
For info, new cars which are 3 years old have to do a Contrôle Technique here, 6 months before the 4th anniversary of being put on the road. This would apply to the OP's 3-year-old car reborn with French plates (if he decides to reregister it). OTOH the deadline has been relaxed due to Covid, but I can't remember for how long....

LFFSam

I was faced with a similar problem several years ago. I was given an MX 5 by an expat who was selling up in France and returning to the UK. The reason he was returning to the UK was that he was involved in a very serious road traffic accident during his first weeks of residence in France in the mid 2000's. It took the best part of 10 years to regain his health unable to live unaided.
The MX5 therefore sat untouched in his barn for 10 years on UK plates....it was hardly on his priority list.
I found out that the car was a grey import in to the UK from Japan and was therefore virtually impossible to immatriculate in France, unless I were to spend thousands of pounds involving vehicle testing at UTAC in Paris.
The simple solution to the issue was to obtain a "partial" certificate of conformity from Mazda France. Insure the car here in France ( Thelem are my agents ), take the vehicle on UK plates for a French CT. The car can now legally be driven in France for one month before starting the importation procedure.
My next step was to book an MOT in Dover less than 5 miles from the ferry port. Following the drive up through France and subsequent ferry, I arrived at the MOT station at 0800 hrs. After a successful MOT ( I had been all over the car doing any required work prior to the French CT), I drove the car to an address in the Midlands, where I met a buyer who had agreed to purchase the car upon a successful UK MOT.
I travelled down to the westcountry directly from the sale by public transport, and bought another MX 5, for which I had already ascertained that I could obtain a full CoC from Mazda.
The rest is history as they say, and that was the start of my love affair with the MX 5.
There is always a solution to the problem, it just depends on how you look at it.
All the vehicles which I have owned in the last 16 years of French residency have been UK imports (due to price and rarity) with only one exception. The importation process is now so simple, I even obtained the quittus online and used the UK MOT for my last import a few months ago. No CoC needed and the whole process completed, purchase to fitting the French number plates in 3 weeks.
Good luck with getting your car sorted.

cyrian

Welcome to the forum

FriendlyExpat

You don't know the full facts so should be cautious about jumping to conclusions. A car can be taken out of the UK for lengthy periods without necessarily triggering the obligatoin to re-register in a foreign country if the removal is not intended to be permanent. OP is quite unlikely to have an issue with this in practice.