Hi. I own a small removals business in the UK. I was thinking of renting a villa in alicante and starting a man and van business. Can I use my uk van for removals in Spain? Or can I only use it for removals from Spain to uk and uk to Spain?

Welcome to BE.

I am moving your thread over to our Spain forum. The regulars in there will be in a better position to advise you.

As you are a new member it is worth mentioning that you cannot use the BE forums to advertise or promote your business.

Site Rules | British Expatriate Community

Hi. So sorry I thought this is the spain forum. Sorry

There are so many people offering this service that you may find it hard to compete and get any business.

Strictly speaking, if you are a Spanish resident, then any vehicle will need to be on Spanish plates and all that entails. However, it is VERY hard to matriculate a van.

No problem. The forum you posted in...The Welcome Inn...is for new members to introduce themselves. Which you are ...but being as you asked a question I thought your thread would be best in the Spain forum.

Hi. Can you use a uk van for removals in Spain? Thanks

I thought that vans can't be reregistered in spain

It will not be possible to re-register a RHD commercial vehicle in Spain. You will be breaking the law if you use it for a business based in Spain.

There are many offering this service. Looking at the prices charged their profit margin must be very tight.

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

Hi Nipper, how are you doing?

I was wondering if you had thought about doing international removals, like moving people's belongings from the UK to Spain?

The reason I ask is that I've been getting quotes from people for the past couple of weeks to move the contents of my flat to Benidorm from Scotland and some of the quotes have been eye watering!

There have been a couple of companies that have been more reasonable, with the only Edinburgh based company coming in best, which I can only assume is because my flat is literally 5 mins away from their warehouse so they won't have to go far to pick up all my stuff.

I'm no expert, but this seems a lot less competitive than normal removals and man and van people, the international removals company I mentioned were the only one I could find in Edinburgh (Meadows International Removals - Meadows Removals), and there's over half a million of us live here. May be something that you could consider doing if the competitions for the man and van stuff is as bad as people are saying?

Hi. I was thinking about doing international moves but thought there would have been a lot of competition as we are only a small business with 3.5ton luton vans. You said you are in Edinburgh I'm not far away from you I'm in livingston. What were the quotes you were offered? We're about in Spain are you moving too? It would give me an insite to what they are charging. Thanks very much for your help and best wishes with your move.

A man in a van type removal operation with a 3.5 ton vehicle has to cost a run based on (probably) a dedicated vehicle, and then has to find a re load for the vehicle back from Spain. The big consolidators combine loads for different people and more often than not have back loads to come back. It's a hell of a run from Scotland down to Spain, and thats why your quotes are going to be expensive. When I did our own removal in a LWB Luton it took 4 hours to the port, and then with two of us non stop driving it took (iirc) 24-26 hours straight through to Valencia region. I seem to remember the full cost was £1500 with van rental, ferry cost & fuel. I do have some knowledge of transport btw, having owned my own Intl Logisitics company in the past

Ha, small world eh!

I didn't go in to huge detail about what I was moving, but the quote was £900+£180 VAT, which they said was typical for moving the contents of a flat to the Costas.

This was nearly half of what some of the national firms quoted me, but was the cheapest overall by a couple hundred pounds. Hope this helps.