that's nothing....there's an English second hand furniture company here.....several shops..........some of the delivery vans are on English plates...the company has been here getting on for 20 years!

I have a feeling you CAN drive a German car on German plates, because a German friend of ours who has been here about 30 years has German plates, Spanish insurance, Spanish ITV and he can still tax his car in Germany.

It was him who told us to get ours ITV'd, he gave us the impression it was legal, so we did it and then when we asked where you taxed it he seemed puzzled and said 'England of couerse, you can't do it here on English plates'.

So we gave all the documents to a Gestor who after EIGHT months is finally getting them done. Nearly complete now - just waiting for the OK from Trafico in Granada. Then we will be legal again.

The reason for the problems are that UK cars are RHD and therefore they have to have the lights converted to LHD before they can be registered, German cars, or cars from any other EU country do not have that problem. Incidentally there is a letter in one of our local free papers comenting about the number of UK cars without tax discs, but he blames the people who come out fro several weeks with a car, then go back to the UK, and because they spend less than 6 months of the year in Spain, THEN THEY DO NOT HAVE TO GET THE CAR REGISTERED. He claims he drives legally, but he certainly doesn't know the laws.
I'm writing a reply to the paper.

At one time didn`t the police have to come round and put seals on the car till you returned to Spain ?

Possibly true in a few cases, but if these cars are here for only several weeks where are their UK tax discs?

i notice spain has the same problems as we do in portugal with ref to illegal cars. plenty of illegal cars running around portugal too

No, he is saying that they leave the cars here all the time to use when they are here, but because the people are not here for the required 6 months to class as residents, then they don't need to register their car, they can just use them unlicensed.

That's a good one!! It's the car not the person!!