2016 UK import - step by step

Off to the airport now to bring home my new car. Will report back how the process went for me over the next couple of days

mad m wrote: »

Lads, just a suggestion. Revoult card you can use it up to 5k sterling in a single transfer without any fee's. Also if rate is good then its a win win.

Exactly what I did. Had to use mine and my girlfriends card but worked a treat. Got a great rate at the time but it's even better now

I had been thinking about buying a car for a short while now and after seeing this thread and the pound fell I decided two weeks ago it was time. Here is my experience :

Spent a couple of days looking at autotrader.co.uk and found a car that ticked all the boxes

Contacted dealership on a friday to find out the following : if i could arrange an independent inspectionby dekra because I would be exportinv and couldn't view myself. Number of keys with the car. Evidence of service history? Documents with car to prove i.e Previous mot certs, garage receipts? What payment they accepted.

I was happy with what I heard to applied for a loan on a saturday for amount needed which came through in 3 days (was over a weekend).

Advertised my car and mams car online and was willing to sell either. €20

Haggled a little with garage and got £500 off. Paid the garage £250 deposit barring nothing showed up in inspection €281

Organised inspection with Dekra on Monday. Got the £125 pound piece of mind one because I was satisfied with all the mot and service history I had seen and garage provided hpi. €161

Inspection was carried out on thursday and report was emailed to me that evening with no problems to report bar a tiny crack on windscreen. Others here have said they got phone call  I tried ringing my engineer a few times but went to voice mail every time and never got call back.
.
Booked flight to Southampton, train to Bournemouth and ferry holyhead to dublin for the Saturday. €207

On Friday I printed off all the boarding passes etc. Made sure I had debit card, driving licence and what not.

Left home at 5.20am for Dublin flight at 8.40. Arrived in Southampton  at 10 am and got train to Bournemouth shortly after. Got collected by sales rep and went for test drive. Back to garage done all the paper work. Took full V5C form, invoice and all mot and service history papers and headed for the port delighted! 7hr drive later and a quick diesel and burger king stop we finally arrived. 3 hour ferry home and 1.5hour drive from there got into bed at 2 am!  It was a long day but so worth it.

Now I must go sort out VRT but delighted to have a car that I didn't think I would be able to afford over here for a loooong time! Thanks Brexit.

So here's the low down of my cost
Advertising : €20
Inspection: €161
Car: €11400
Travel: €207
VRT: ~€4000
Total: €15 700 ish
Value of car here ~€21000
Saving around €5000

RobTheLad wrote: »

In the exact same situation as yourself, I used advice given on here to use TransferMate, excellent customer service, and once they have funds in their account by 1pm, its in the dealer's account by COB

I want to see the car and have a deal face to face, I dont want to buy the car unseen. Also i dont want to have to go over, wait two days for the cash to clear either.

Don't know if this is helpful but if you have a bank of ireland visa debit card there is no limit so you can just play for your car using that

walus wrote:

I can confirm that. I was paying £10k with visa debit but informed the bank about my plans so they would not jump on the fact that there is so much money about to be transfer from a location abroad. As I was doing that on Sunday I thought it would be good to have all these sorted.

Same here. I rang bank and insurance company on the Wednesday or Thursday and sorted everything then for the Saturday. I would probably have saved a couple of hundred by using transfer mate or the likes but it was more convenient for me to use debit card even though dealers machine charged 2.15%

I'm looking for some information regarding the purchase of a nearly new car in the UK as there is no second hand models available here at the moment. A couple of queries I have are as follows:
• V5C Form. Is this a requirement when registering car over here?
• Who is the best car assessor in the UK to get to carry out an inspection of the car?
• Safest way of money payment?
• Warranty cover in Ireland.

Any further tips or things I need to be in the know about?

theaaao wrote: »

I opened a currencyfair account but I presume its same as transfer mate?

I put a deposit on a car this evening. Heading over next Monday to hopefully collect. Ive booked a nights accommodation in case the transfer doesn't go through in one day. (Bank holiday here but not in the UK so not sure if that will affect transfer times.)

Just rang PTSB customer service. You can transfer 5k online and 5k over the phone, limiting it to 10K in a day. Calling to the branch has no cap on transfer except for the incovenience of it.

To answer my own question above they both seem to be the same. Fee charges slightly differnet but will do nicely for my needs anyway. Heres a link to comparison breakdown.

Has anybody used currency fair? Any feedback on transfer times?

Bumski wrote: »

I recently purchased a car in the UK. There are a number of threads on this issue, including the bumper one, but given the recent Brexit and the sterling rate and their impact on the value formoney that can be got, I thought I’d put down a number of steps that I followed on the process.
I’m an average guy with no specialised knowledge about cars,mechanics or engines. Others, more expert, might not bother with the AA check I paid for, but it saved me time and I was able to fly to the UK and leave on the ferry with the car on the same day. I hope that this can be of use to someone

So the steps (with costs) were:



1 sourced the car model and spec on autotrader UK and/or motors.co.uk

2 Check the probable VRT cost online on the Revenue ROS VRT calculator

2A Check the UK MOT site for mileage at last MOT https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history

3 Checked with my insurance company the impact of the proposed new car on my policy and premium

4 I booked a low fares airline morning midweek return flight to the UK for a date 2 weeks later for €30 (the return leg cost €10 included in the €30 – I bought the return leg in case of any unforeseen problem) I booked to Manchester for 10.30am

5 contact the garage and discuss price – noted to garage that I would be exporting the vehicle and so would not be test driving myself ahead of time (I did not want to buy from a private seller as I think it would be more difficult to arrange an engineer car check and meet up and payment safely)

6 Check how many keys are there for the car (is there a master key or code tag), whether there is a service history, are there any further documents (eg. Previous mot certs, garage receipts for work done). Is the user manual in the car.

7 Agreed a small deposit (£200) by phone and paid garage with visa

8 Organised a comprehensive car inspection using Dekra (£125) This inspection also includes a full HPI. Adverse findings are advised orally but the full results of the check are not included in the report

9 Opened an account with transfermate to minimize sterling conversion costs. This needs to be done maybe a week before the date you want to pay as there are some admin requirements including proof of identity and address. Emails of pdfs of utility bill, bank details and passport required)

10 Received car inspection report and phone the engineer to get his non written general opinion

11 A few minor niggles reported to the garage to be sorted before I collected the car

12 Obtain UK garage bank details and send to transfermate

13 Type up a letter seeking refund of UK road tax that most garages will get you to pay online before leaving

14 Organise transfer with transfermate. Allow 2 working days. Day one transfers from your Irish account to Transfermate. Day 2 – transfers to UK.

15 The day before flying – organise to transfer insurance to the new car (you need the make model and reg)

16 Book the ferry for the next day I booked the latest possible at 8pm – cost me €144

17 On arrival at the garage obtain all keys, the manual, an invoice and a complete V5C document (minus part 4 which is sent bythe garage to the DVLA in Swansea)

18 Pay the UK road tax (minimum 6 months) Maybe you can avoid this but it cost me €77 (but depends on the emissions of the car and the exchange rate) and UK car tax no longer transfers with change of ownership. UK cops have the right to impound an untaxed car (though any reasonable cop probably wouldn’t if it’s en route to the ferry for export)

19 Give the letter seeking refund to the garage to include with the V5C part 4 to send to the DVLA.

20 Drive to Holyhead smiling!

21 On arrival in Ireland book the VRT test at the NCTS. The cost of the inspection is covered in the VRT that you pay. No separate charge. This inspection does not test the car (it is not a standard NCTS test) and only verifies that the VRT amount is correct. The booking must be made within 7 days and all paperwork completed within 30 days or the import is subject to fines

22 Although not necessary, I kept a colour copy of the V5C and the other documents that I supplied to the NCTS, the documents required are detailed at: http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vrt/vrt-guide.html

· I provided: V5C (this is very important!)

· Dated Invoice for the car

· Recent Utility bill

· P60 (you can black out salary details)

· Recent Internet Bank statement (but subsequently stamped by my bank as revenue insist on one original document – myP60 and utility were also online generated printouts)

· VRT Vehicle Purchase Declaration Form VRTVPD2 http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vrt/vrt-guide.html#section2e3

· Proof of date of entry (I used my ferry booking details)

· Declaration Form for the Registration of a newVehicle/ Motorcycle



23 Pay the VRT following the inspection. Max allowable on a debit card by banks is normally €1500 (your individual limit may differ - if you're planning to go this route check with your bank and the NCTS that it's ok). Credit cards can be used subject to a 1% additional fee (and subject to your individual credit limit). If necessary, NCTS advised me that you can mix payments from both cards to minimise the cc fee. You can also pay with a bank draft – my draft cost €2.40.

24 On receipt you will be given a new registration number by the NCTS

25 New plates can be made by many motor factors for about €20

26 Notify your insurance company of the new registration

27 Change any relevant details for etolls, M50 or any work related car information if applicable.

28 One day later your registration details will appear on the motor tax online website and the tax can be paid online using a pin number supplied by the NCTS

29 The tax disk arrived for me two working days later.

30 I am currently awaiting the new VLC which should arrive this week and will then book my required NCT.



I'm ever hopeful that I might get a five month rebate on the UK motor tax paid.....

Thanks for your step by step guide OP!

Just looked at the revenue link there and they are talking about needing a Certificate of Conformity (CoC) to register. Can anybody explain what this is referring to? I hope to pick up car next Monday from dealer - is it something I need him to get organising quick or should he have it to hand?

'From 12 September 2016 a Certificate of Conformity (CoC) must be on the Revenue system before a new vehicle can be registered. When you are purchasing a new vehicle abroad you MUST get the CoC, either in paper or electronic form, from the seller. It is advisable that you check in advance that the seller has a CoC and the other mandatory documentation available. You will not be able to register your vehicle if you do not have the CoC or the other mandatory documentation.'

Right okay. I was reading that with thinking that the 'new' was referring to the step of registering a car in ireland for the first time even though it would be used.

thanks.

I note some people have managed to arrange with the dealer to pick them up from the airport and bring them to the dealers. Is this a thing that most delaers will accomodate?

As promised here is a link to photos of my new car (Can't post links so just remove spaces)

https:// drive.google .com/ folderview?id=0B7e1quvRmc2hZFdnUklocEtpWVk

Esel wrote:

Looks great!

Thanks I'm delighted with it. Sat in it for 10 hours travelling home and felt like an hour. So comfortable

An Ard Ri wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I'm buying from a main dealer and they have informed me it must be taxed. Obviously I'm going to try and not pay it. I'm flying in first thing in the morning and home on the 14.10 ferry.

Good luck tomorrow...

Let me (and everyone else!) know how you got on with the road tax situation. I am also buying from a main dealer. I popped them a mail today to suss it out but heard nothing yet. Picking it up next Monday.