Boatfreak

Hi
I'm a Newbie and not stictly an Expat, but I have an Expat problem. We have a boat which we live on for 7 or 8 months in the summer returning to the UK in the winter. At the moment the boat is in Southern Sicily till May, then we have to leave or pay big bucks.We have a lot of gear to get to the boat and had planned to drive the car the 1750 miles to Sicily use it for a month to do jobs and sightsee then park it up in the marina, go sailing and return in October when we do more jobs and sightseeing and drive home in November. This falls foul of the 6 months in Italy before you have to register the vehicle as an Italian vehicle. We don't want to register the car as Italian and probably couldn't anyway as we won't have residency. We can take the car home again before May but it's a lot of driving and we had been looking forward to the sightseeing next Autumn. I was wondering is there is anyway we can have the car effectively put in to bonded storage so that it is legally not available to drive . I know that this can be done with yachts in some European countries for VAT purpose. A non EU yacht can only be used in the EU for 18months before VAT is payable, but if the yacht is officially laid up "put in bond" and not available for use the clock can be stopped.

Does anyone know if a similar mechanism exists in Italy for vehicles?

C.2s

Are you sure that you have to register the car? As you say you can't register a car in Italy because you are not resident here! You won't be able to get residency because you are not living here. I think you should double check this, because it is generally your residence status not where the car is that determines where it must be registered (and taxed). This causes some confusion, and much of the advice on websites/blogs etc is out of date. For example, recently (December 2018) there was a change to italian law which means that residents cannot own/drive a foreign registered car, and many people were wondering if they could avoid this by taking the car out of the country, but of course this is irrelevant...as I said, it's about you, and your residence status, not the car.

modicasa

If you are not resident in ITaly then you dont need to reregister the car. You will be in ITaly, then go sailing. then return - if you're not in ITaly for more than 90 days in one go, or for more than 6 months through the year then there is no reason to become resident.

Boatfreak

Thanks for the replies, however I feel you have both got the wrong idea. I am not worrying about or intending to re-register the car as Italian. However the car will be in Italy for at least seven months, even if I am not. Whilst there may be no proof that it is in Italy there will certainly be nothing to prove that it wasn't. As far as I can see the rule is that it must not be in Italy, not that it must not be driven. Even if I am in another country I can't prove that no one else has driven it. What I was looking for was legal documentation to prove that it has not been available to be driven. In the UK these days we no longer have tax disks because there are so many cameras with Automatic Number Plate Recognition linked to the database that the authorities can catch road tax evaders without even stopping them. Think about the London congestion zone and Dartford crossings, you drive through the area all unsuspecting and three days later you get a bill sent to your home.

Novocastrian

Just SORN the car, and rent a lock up garage at or near the relevant port.

C.2s

I take your point. But the question is about if the rules are being communicated correctly. The RAC say that you can 'import' a car for six months in any one year, but if you want to have the car here for longer than that you have to register it BUT their advice is confusing because you can't register it here unless you are a resident, and if you are a resident you don't have 6 months... you have 60 days. Therefore perhaps their advice overall cannot be trusted?

What does the embassy say?

As for the number plate recognition...I don't think you need worry. It is very easy to cross the border out of Italy with no checks whatsoever. Also one of the reasons they've changed the law for residents is because the laws are almost impossible for them to enforce on foreign registered vehicles. People have been speeding, not paying tolls, etc and getting away with it. Same thing in the UK. Supposedly over one million foreign vehicles haven't paid the Dartford toll

Boatfreak

Well, the UK had a big clampdown on foreign registered vehicles in 2015 and with Brexit and the increased use of vehicles as weapons I am sure that other countries will follow suit and be setting up "Soft" surveillance at borders. As for Novacastrians SORN idea, The following www.gov.uk web page says "Your vehicle must stay in the UK for your SORN to be valid."
"gov.uk/sorn-statutory-off-road-notification ", sorry I'm not allowed to post links till I've made 5 posts. I was trying to be squeaky clean legal, rather than just get away with it. Anyway thanks for the suggestions, but I have more or less decided to take the car to Greece and leave it there, thereby pausing the clock for three months . We will get friends to take it back to Italy in return for the chance of a free car with which to tour Southern Italy and Sicily.