Washand

My British registered car is parked in my home driveway in France and its MOT has expired. If I was in the UK, I would just book an MOT and it would be legal to drive it to the MOT garage. If I have booked an MOT in the UK, is it legal to drive the car from France to a UK garage? Clearly, the car would have to be insured and taxed first. I don't want to register it in France because of the cost. Thanks for any comments.

Pulaski

Without an MOT there's no way to get British insurance that would do anything but cover you to drive it to a prebooked MOT inspection, and there's no way that argument will fly when your car is in France. And you're not going to get French insurance without registering it in France.

I believe the only safe/ legal solution would be to either pay for it to be transported to the UK, or rent a trailer and tow it yourself. A car will also fit in a standard 20ft container, but you'll need the straps and blocks to secure it in place.

dmu

I tried transferring an old thread, but it didn't work. Do a forum search (top right) and enter "MOT in UK". Click on the 7th thread down (Jack Russel). I haven't time to wade through it but it covers the subject, except for the OP living in the UK.
Good luck!

Tweedpipe

Pulaski gave the correct advise. Rent a trailer and tow it to UK yourself.

EuroTrash

Which of course won't be possible because you can't tax a car if it needs an MoT and doesn't have one.
Obviously it isn't legal to drive a UK reg car on the roads in any country with no tax or MOT.
It needs to be trailered back.
And even on a trailer it should be insured because France enforces continuous insurance, ie every vehicle must be insured even if temporarily off the road (unless permanently disabled), it shouldn't even have been parked on a drive uninsured.

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, if you don't want to register it in France, don't leave it in France for longer than six months per year.

Unless of course the person lives in France in which case they don't have a choice or a grace period, they have to register it here. It would very be nice if we could all look at the cost of complying with the law and decide whether we wanted to do it or not, there are plenty laws I would decide I didn't want to comply with because of the cost ,but unfortunately that's not how it is. And when it comes to cars and residence, it's not just about registration and code de la route, it's customs and excise. To import a car from outside the EU there is paperwork to be done and potentially import tax to be paid. If a French resident were to be suspected of having smuggled a car into France for their own use without declaring it at the border, road traffic infringements like the lack of MoT would pale into insignificance.