Hi All, just a few days ago I drove down to Spain to live with my partner (Spanish national) and continue working from 'home' until Christmas. Despite meticulous planning of every detail of the trip, I managed to overlook the fact that my MOT is due in November and so now I must cut short having my car here, return it to the UK and then fly back to Spain. As I've bought my work equipment with me (PC, monitors) I'm looking for advice from anyone that's had experience of a similar issue. As I see it I have the following options:

1. drive car back before MOT expires and return to Spain with laptop (the return driving cost is prohibitive)
2. drive car back and leave belongings here, then ship via a reliable freight company when I return.

If anyone has any other ideas I'd be grateful to hear them, especially any experience of reliable companies that can transport fragile items at a reasonable cost.

And yes - absolutely kicking myself for PP planning.

If you intend living in spain then you could ;
3. Matriculate your car onto Spanish plates

If you're not going to re-plate your car then you have only 2 options, return the car to the UK for the MOT or let the MOT expire and scrap the car.

I would be tempted to drive the car back to the UK, MOT & sell it. Fly back to spain and buy a spanish vehicle.

good luck

One other option (but very time limited) is to sell the car in spain (at a cheap price) . We sold our UK car to a dealer local to us who sold it on pretty quickly to someone who was living in spain and wanted to drive back to UK. (strangely when we got the V5 paperwork after the sale, said buyer actually lived about 10 mins drive from where we used to live ourselves in the UK... ..). Depends if you think there may UK expats in your area who might be wanting/needing to go back to UK permanently after Dec 31st...also depends if you want to have an LHD car ultimately too.

For us it was a no brainer as it was quite costly/faffy to re-matriculate the car and change the headlights etc.

Sorry, why do have to take the car back and then fly down with a laptop? Are all your pc/monitors fixed in the car? Why not leave the PC at your partners house?

There are transport companies that will take the car for €600 each way. you dont even have to be there to get it MOT´d do you ? although thats still €1200 plus having someone ITV it for you.

The problem with this, is that if you intend to stay in Spain, while the car would be legal (as long as the insurance is valid, being that you are outside of the UK), after 6 months it would become illegal for you to drive it (because you own it, and by then you would have become resident)

The best bet, (if you are looking to stay) is to sell it, and get a spanish car.

I would go for option 2 and then send all of your belongings back on a pallet at the end of your stay. A Europallet 90*120 up to 250KG will set you back around 200-250 Euro, door to door depending on the height of the load. Just make sure you pack, balance, tie and wrap it well. You would be surprised how much fits on a pallet.