Dear All...Merry Christmas!

My residency application has had a favourable resolution, I've done the fingerprints and have an appointment to pick up the card early Feb. So far so good.

However, I'm now concerned about my car. I brought this with me to Spain at the end of August. My plan has always been to return to the UK to sell it and to get a Spanish car there or return to buy one here. However, the lockdown situation pushed everything back and I thought I had plenty of time.

There is a deadline after which foreign cars much be matriculated in Spain. I thought this was 60 days from granting of residency and I'd had in mind that that would be after the issue of TIE. I thought recently that maybe that was wrong, perhaps it would be from the resuelto favorable and I started looking into it.

As far as I can tell, it looks as though it's 60 days after the entry of the vehicle into Spanish territory. That's a pain because it means I've been driving it illegally. I don't want to import the car, because I don't want a British car here. Ideally I'd drive it back to the UK, or sell it to a Brit here (but they would be driving it illegally then) but if necessary I would scrap it here.

The car is not worth a lot, probably £1,500 in the UK.

So does anyone have any advice for the best course of action? Even better, any idea why my conclusion that I've missed the deadline might be wrong?

I tried to find the relevant regulation and this is where I ended up: https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id...00205&tn=1#a66

I drove my Polo to Spain and used it until I purchased my Spanish car. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to sell to a dealer. I got what I expected I might get selling it in the UK.

Hi - great, where was that? Would you mind sharing the dealer? I'm not in an area with many foreigners so it might be hard here. When you sold it were you within the 60 days I mentioned?

It was in Ciudad Quesada many years ago. I don't expect there will be a demand and it will be difficult to find a buyer if you are not in an area popular with Brits.

You might find that the car is worth more here in spain than the UK - there are plenty of "apps" and places that you could sell the car privatly (get them to sign a contract, take a copy / photo of their passport/nie & send a letter to the DVLA (because they wont have a uk address), if they are a brit going back, then sell it the normal way and send off the green slip as you would do if you are in the uk.

I would recomend wallapop, milanuncios, coches.net, ebay.co.uk etc. (theres loads of uk cars on ebay, in spain - you see "car is in alicante, car is in marbella" etc.)

EU rules state that the maximum period anyone can use a foreign car in SPAIN, or any other country, before being obliged to Spanish register it is 6 months.

As a resident you have one month.

Your residency will have begun on the day you submitted your EX-32 form and that's the date which will appear on your TIE.

Assuming it's still fully UK road legal then there is nothing to prevent it being driven back to UK, a buyer would need to ensure that they were properly insured of course.

There are dealers who will buy UK regged cars or take them in PX but expect a pittance, I think most owners are just happy to be getting rid of them by handing the keys over and walking away and not having to go through the bother of selling privately which BTW residents are not permitted to do anyway.

Thanks - yes, I realise I'll probably need to drive it somewhere else to sell it.