Importing a car >10 years old from the EU

[DITTRICH]

Has anyone done anything like this before?

The things that cross my mind:-

1 De-registration from the EU country of export (plates?)
2 Getting the car back to the UK (transporter) or drive it
3 Insurance for getting it back to the UK (which companies do this)
4 Its more than 10y old so no sva or iva testing.
5 It will need an MOT and therefore: speedo, headlamps, side repeaters, rear foglight...(anything else?)
6 Filling in forms for customs (VAT)
7 with 3, 5 and 6 and a whole bunch of forms I should be able to register it.
8 If it is de-registered already in the EU country how do I drive it back without plates? Probably not possible I suspect.

Any pointers gratefully received.

Les

 

[Tiff]

Has anyone done anything like this before?

The things that cross my mind:-

1 De-registration from the EU country of export (plates?)
2 Getting the car back to the UK (transporter) or drive it
3 Insurance for getting it back to the UK (which companies do this)
4 Its more than 10y old so no sva or iva testing.
5 It will need an MOT and therefore: speedo, headlamps, side repeaters, rear foglight...(anything else?)
6 Filling in forms for customs (VAT)
7 with 3, 5 and 6 and a whole bunch of forms I should be able to register it.
8 If it is de-registered already in the EU country how do I drive it back without plates? Probably not possible I suspect.

Any pointers gratefully received.

Les

Depends where its coming from. I know that from Germany, you get 30 day temporary export plates and you can insure it on the chassis number.Headlamps will pass our MOT with masks on them and repeaters and foglights shouldn't be an issue - repeaters are 1986 onwards here- some German cars only have one foglight,which will be on the wrong side,but this can be fairly easily dealt with.I don't think you pay any VAT at all on non commercial vehicles. Have a look here, this question is asked almost daily! Toytown Germany

 

[antonyw124]

I lived in Denmark and brought a Land rover defender station wagon whilst there. When I moved back to the uk i brought it with me. It was over 10 yrs old. I seem to remember i had a little while to "import it" when i got back to the uk, It was straight forward. I needed to visit My local DVLA. It would probably be wise to give them a ring. But it was a lot easier than i thought it would be. this was about 8 yrs ago.

 

[219]

My LHD 219 was imported in 1964 ( by which time it was already seven years old ) .

I don't have asymmetric beams , so no problem there . The car passes its MOT quite happily with its Km/h only speedometer and the single rear foglamp I retrofitted on the driver's side (left) ( the car does not need to have a rear foglamp at all ) and is also exempt from emissions measurement being pre-1960 ( only needing the exhaust not to appear excessively smoky ) . The car also does not require to be fitted with seatbelts , and has white front indicators and red rear ones ( legal up to 1964 ) .

The point of all this being that regulations changed over the years and what you need depends entirely on how much older than 10 years the car in question is .

 

[DITTRICH]

Car is in Switzerland. Year is 1991. Swiss registration is described as cancelled.
Les

 

[Sp!ke]

Generally speaking, we have the cheapest second hand cars n Europe there's not much of a market for this unless you've stumbled on something particularly cheap or interesting.

On a ten year old car, the costs of sorting the paperwork will most likely make the exercise not viable financially.

 

[DITTRICH]

I understand where you are coming from.
The car is interesting.
I will post the link if I decide against it.