685steve

Hi,
We are hoping to move to the Costa Del Sol at the beginning of may for 11 months. The problem is that I want to bring my own car across to Spain for that period, however it seems a problem getting insurance, my UK insurance Co. (Direct Line) will only insure it for 90 days. Does anyone know of a UK company that will insure it for the full 11 months, or failing that what I need to do to be able to bring it over.

Thanks in anticipation.

Steve.

MnM

Hi Steve,

We use Dragon Insurance SL. We've been working with them for 3 years now and have not had any problems so far. They insure both Spanish and UK registered cars (as long as your UK MOT is valid). They are a Costa Blanca based company, but if they are unable to help, maybe they can point you in the right direction. We've always found them very helpful.

http://www.dragoninsure.com/

Best of luck!

jdr

Beware this is a slightly grey area.
Firstly there are companies that will take your money but whether the car is insured is another matter.
It is illegal to have a car that is not registered in Spain over here for more than six months as it must then be imported into Spain, this makes the car illegal and therefore must void the insurance.
They will probably keep taking your renewals and you wont know till you claim, then you will get "oh dear, the circumstances have changed and you have not informed us, etc".

This may help HERE and HERE

jdr

The car must be MOT`d and TAXED in the country of registration and only be in Spain for less than 6 months.
The Guardia around here are now asking to see ferry tickets etc as proof of when the vehicle arrived in Spain.

MnM

Hi JDR,

Yes, you are absolutely correct and we are very aware of all the laws and restrictions, but as you say there is alot of "grey" area.

The insurance we have used (in this instance Dragon) has paid out on accidents and we have not had any problems with them....so far! The only thing that they insisted upon was that the UK reg vehicle be properly MOT'd in the UK.

But definitely, by all means, Steve should be aware of the Spanish laws regarding vehicles and insurance.

jdr

They are having a purge on UK cars here, cos they are so easy to spot with no tax disc.
They just impound them till the paperwork is produced, if not the car turns into a block of tin, unless its an X5 then it goes to Marbella as a staff car. ;-)

685steve

Thanks for the replies, bit of a quandry this, as we are only there for 11 months I didn't really want to register it in Spain only to re-register it back in the UK, plus it's fairly new so don't really want to sell it prior to moving.
As Fagin said in the film "Oliver", "I think i'd better think it out again".

Thanks very much for the replies, really appreciated.

Steve.

MnM

Wow! That is good to know!

I'll have to "enlighten" a few friends!

mikelincs

Good idea, because the laws here would mean, if you were stopped, and couldn't prove you were here for less than 6 months, what they would do is to confiscate the car, there and then, no matter you might be a couple of hundred km from home. There is no '6 days to take the papers to the police station', but it's, papers not in the car here and now, you can't carry on driving. Much more draconian than the UK, and not a good idea to risk it.