export car from the uk

[shadyracing]

hello all!

as i understand a lot of you are from the UK.
so maybe you can help me. i am from austria and looking forward to buy a car from england. i heard that if the car got plates, i can drive it home after purchase. how do i proceed to buy a car? is there a lot of paperwork included?
what if the car got no plates? are there some sort of temporary export plates i can purchase?
any help would be appriciated.

best regards

martin

[gsb876]

Not sure about plates ? as if the car is registered in the UK then it would have UK plates which you can drive it on in the EU but once in home country be changed over accordingly and registered properly.

I sold my old R33 GTR to a lad from France and basically he insured the car for travel on that particular day and drove it from here to France on UK plates with the paperwork for the car and a receipt from me to confirm date of sale and contact details for me should he be stopped and not able to explain properly any issues.

Got home safely with no issues.

[elford_tim]

I\'ve just sold a car to Austria and it looks like the process is a matter of insuring the car, informing the DVLA that it is being exported (that is the purple part of the registration document), then drive it over there.

A UK car will have plates as over here the plates stay on the car (in contrast to Germany, Austria, Switzerland etc where a change of owner often means a change of plates as well and a deregistered car will not carry plates). You\'ll have to have MOT, Tax and insurance to drive it to Austria but that\'s it.

[shadyracing]

thank you for explaining. so if the car got mot and tax, it also got plates and everything is fine. but when looking through some for-sale ads i encountered some other possibilities.

what to do if the car has no MOT or noTAX?

what to do if the seller got personal plates and dont want to give them away?

what to do if the car wasnt registered, like a fresh import from japan?

i don\'t have a particular car in sight. i plan on visiting england for some days and checking out some cars. and take the one home i like best.

thank you again
martin

[Kieron]

what to do if the car has no MOT or noTAX? Dont get caught

what to do if the seller got personal plates and dont want to give them away? They can apply for it to be transfered

what to do if the car wasnt registered, like a fresh import from japan?i dont think you could take it to Austria, you\'ll have to register it here, then export it

How many RX7s are over there now? I spend 3 weeks each winter in Lungau, lovely there. If you need someone in the UK to look at cars for you, take pictures etc feel free to email me. kieronash@hotmail.com

[shadyracing]

thank you again.
so it will be a lot easier with a registered car.

what to do if the car has no MOT or noTAX? Dont get caught - ok. thats solved, but if i get caught? whats then?

what to do if the seller got personal plates and dont want to give them away? They can apply for it to be transfered - how long would this take?

what to do if the car wasnt registered, like a fresh import from japan?i dont think you could take it to Austria, you\'ll have to register it here, then export it - in germany or austria you can get plates which are valid for a short time, so you can transfer a car. are there no temporary plates in england?

 i appriciate you offer. where are you located?

martin

[trotter]

If you get caught with no tax or MOT you run the risk of getting into a whole sh!tload of trouble. Over here, no MOT usually means no insurance and if the policeman is having a particularly bad day that means at least 6points, a fine, car being impounded and you potentially getting arrested.

If you\'re just driving it straight out the country then you might get away with it, but if it\'s a UK-registered car it MUST be taxed, MOT\'d and insured to be driven on our public roads.

HTH

graeme

[Kieron]

i appriciate you offer. where are you located?

martin

Surrey when in the UK and St Michael when in Austria

[johnf]

Hi

I sold a car that was driven back to Germany, it may help if you ask him how to do it.

My car did have tax and MOT but he sorted his own insurance out.

email -  Karl.swiontek@aixcon.de

John

[madx]

Hi everyone,

Following up on the discussion: Where does one get insurance for the export plates if one does not live in the UK? I am from Switzerland and will buy a new car in the UK and then export it. Therefore, I need insurance to drive it home. Unfortunately, I cannot get the insurance in Switzerland.

Looking forward to your hints,

Madx

[elford_tim]

When you say you\'re buying a new car here, does that mean that the car will not be registered in the UK at all? If that\'s the case you\'re probably best off in borrowing something like a van and a trailer.

If you\'re buying a car here that is registered, it\'ll most likely be just the normal insurance but then again you\'ll have to jump over the hurdle that you aren\'t a UK resident and most UK insurance companies regard any sort of foreigner with a suspicion (has happened to me often enough and I am a UK resident) so $DEITY only knows what they\'ll say...

That said, it might be worth looking at these people for short term insurance: http://dayinsure.com/

Unfortunately regular UK insurance is for a 12 month contract and there aren\'t many other options.

[Speedworks]

Germany has red plates which are temporary plates. no Idea if Austria has them too. Also verify if temporary plates are valid outside germany/Austria.

What you could do is tkae the plates of another car , inform the insurance company that you will put them on a car which has MOT, tell them the Chassis/Vin nr. Normally they will approve that for the day. You can take the plates with you, put them on and drive it back. Then register the car, insurance/tax/TUV

[elford_tim]

The temporary plates as available in Germany are not valid outside Germany even though their use is usually tolerated.

While you can get temporary number plates in the UK, these are for dealer use only and if you\'re not a UK car dealer, you can\'t get them.

[madx]

Thank you for the replies. Unfortunately, however, they do not help. Here again my situation:

I will buy a new car from a UK dealer (as a visitor to the UK) and would like to drive that car to Switzerland.

1) The plates I am trying to insure are UK export plates. So the car is registered in the UK (UK first registration). In fact, I will fill in a VAT 410 form (so I can get the car free of VAT) and receive a pink (I believe) registration book. dayinsure.com does not insure export plates.

2) I cannot use the German red temporary plates, as such plates are only available to German residents. So, even if the red plates are valid abroad, they are not solution for me since I cannot get them.

3) The Swiss will not insure a car that has not yet been (physically) imported into the country.

Sure, having the car shipped by a shipping company is an option, but an expensive one (would cost me about GBP 1200). Renting a car transporter or a car with a trailer hitch and a trailer is even more expensive.

So, no other options? There must be a way to get insurance for the UK export plates in the UK somehow, right?

[elford_tim]

Insurance in the UK is a funny business so I\'m not massively surprised by the insurance issue. I know this doesn\'t help, though.

If you\'re buying a car from a dealer who knows about the export process, ask them if they can recommend an insurance broker who can get insurance for a non-UK resident. It\'s most likely a case of talking to the right people but as I\'ve never been involved in exporting a new car from the UK I can\'t recommend anybody.