With all due respect the difference between importing a classic car and a new vehicle with EU type approval is as different as night and day.

There are just as many, if not more people across the forums that have registered their vehicles in Spain without any fuss what so ever.

It is just the nature of the beast, not many people come on forums when they've had no problems and post compared to people who come on forums for advice before or when they have problems!

One could say for anyone moving to a new country, if you're scared or bewildered by a bit of foreign paperwork then perhaps one shouldn't be moving in the first place, know what I mean?

Let's face it Spain is the capital city of paperwork of the EU

Let us not forget that our very own Mitzyboy had his car registered, on Spanish plates within a week or so and if anyone was going to have problems he would have with his Japanese import!

Perhaps the tester was an ex hairdresser ?

If he/she was they would have cut Mitzys pony tail off as part of the deal

Zel,
Mizty’s car is a very good example of what we are saying. Because someone in some office did not do the paperwork correctly the car does not need an ITV every year, as per the age of car. This for us is more proof that officials do not seeming know about the regulations. However in this case they were helpful. Less ITV for Mizty to worry about. (So that only leaves us to worry about his ponytail)

Going back to the original question, Mike is looking for a law that quite specially states what some folks on this forum have written. Fred pointed him our to the correct article. However unlike other European counties Spain is quite poor at putting knowledge into the public domain, like the Internet. But that does not make Spain a terrible place to live.

Thanks everyone for all the very useful and informative replies. I can quite understand now that a definitive online quote may not be available (we have the same problem in France as some government departments have embraced the internet and some not and most do not know the rules anyway so make their own up as they go) and will take the majority advice.

Ian & Irene,

We are coming over in April (if I do not have a nervous breakdown or the boss kills me first) so will give you a shout then (even if it only to say hello and introduce ourselves). I think that we will probably end up buying our vehicles over in Spain as it also means that we can get the guarantees for them and there should be no problem with servicing contracts etc.

Thanks for asking about vets knowledge of llamas, we advice the vets here when we need then to come out but will be disadvantaged until we get up to speed with the language. Our best friends here are a Dutch couple who can speak Spanish (Why is it that all the Dutch people we know can speak so many languages!!!...our farrier is Dutch as well and can speak 5 languages fluently) and they are helping out with some basic language lessons at the moment..mind you they have a wicked sense of humour and are probably teaching us loads of swear words!!!

Kind Rgds, Mike L

Thanks for the reply Mike,
We look forward to meeting you.
Ian agrees about the Dutch knowing so much about languages. Good schooling always helps, plus the TV is never dubbed so you can hear the ‘music’ of the language that is being spoken. But if you have sufficient French then Spanish should prove reasonably easy to learn. That is Irene's point of view.

It matters not that you can't find the relevant details, but there are problems with visibility if loaded, and that the doors will open the wrong way, that is the first opening door will be on the wrong side for Spain, also if there is a side opening door, it will be on the traffic side over here.