Importing camper into Ireland

I can officially confirm they are "winging it"

We , as a main dealer , buying direct from the factory , can show them the purchase price of a typical new MH . They have a convoluted formula , but it's daft , they mostly look up something that looks similar , on Autotrader etc and work from there , irregardless of the fact that the one they are looking at may well be of a much higher spec .

And they aren't even consistent! We registered 2 new factory builds , about a month apart . same chassis , same engine , same interior , same colour even! Genuinely identical . 1200 euro more VRT on the 2nd one , and they couldn't explain why...

sunchaser wrote: »

Why bother importing.
Ireland appears presently to be the cheapest place to buy a motorhome.
There are many sites with motorhomes abroad and compare these with Irish site and you will find that I am right.
Buy in Ireland and you may save a job.
Then you can enjoy your motorhome.

I would agree.

Examples of my motorhome (a '05 upperend A Class) are currently listed in the UK are priced in the region of £32k thats €40k at current rates, add a VRT of 13.5% of say the Revenue's notional OMSP of €45k which would be €6k bringing the total cost of importing to €46k, not including ferries flights etc.
Going on examples of private sales which I personally know of if I were insane enough to put mine on the Irish market I would probably get somewhere in the low €30k's for, it if anyone was buying .
If I had to sell I would probably do an export to the European market (it's LHD) where similar models are listed for €40k.

So, if you look in Ireland in the current climate you should find better value than importing and get the satisfaction of not having to hand over a wedge of your hard earned to the Revenue.

sno_fun3 wrote: »

Hi just wondering if anyone has imported a camper into Ireland lately, have been trying to gather some information on how much the V.R.T. might come to, have tried talking to both customs + excise and local tax office but neither can help.
Ive been told i will need to pay 13.5% of the open market selling value of the van i bring in but no one can tell me how much that will be before i roll up to rosslare to register it on Irish plates. There is an extremely complicated form that involves comparing the prices of vans for sale in Ireland with similar vans for sale in the UK but i cant make sense of it really.

Would be interested to hear if any one has brought in a camper and much you were charged for VRT to try and get some idea of what it might cost if we were to bring in a van.

thanks

Wayne

Hi Wayne,
We brought one in in 2006, at the time it was 50€ vrt for vehicles over 3 ton, so we made the weight (Literally ) thats all finished know afaik, what are you after? if you know what you want there is good value here, the good stuff on done deal sells very fast if the sellers value is realistic.

good luck!
we bought a B584 from donaghys last year, this has come up on done deal recntly, you probably saw it
http://www.donedeal.ie/for-sale/campers/4095583

Quote:




Originally Posted by sunchaser

Why bother importing.
Ireland appears presently to be the cheapest place to buy a motorhome.
There are many sites with motorhomes abroad and compare these with Irish site and you will find that I am right.
Buy in Ireland and you may save a job.
Then you can enjoy your motorhome.

Who do you work for????

Squ was never in the motorhome trade, now retired & enjoying life.

Ever think of Germany 1996Hymer S520 it's the only one of any year advertised

Its got loads of extras, including four solar panels, and looks in great condition and it's on Merc chassis.

sno_fun3 wrote: »

Oh right i had heard people talking about rosslare i just thought that was the only place to register it,

OP Afaik it works like this you buy the van you have no clue what the VRT will be other than it will be based on what they might think the OMP is,you then contact your local NCT office yes thats right the nct and make an appointment,they will inspect the van and send you away telling you they will contact you when they have contacted revenue,in a few days you will get a call from the nct at that stage you will be told how much the VRT will be,you pay the vrt and tax it only after that can you appeal
As was said some good deals at home at the moment best of luck what ever way you go

I've just seen the repeat of a Customs programme on RTE which jogged my memory.

You have 30 days, from importing a vehicle, in which to re-register it as Irish.

Aidan_M_M wrote: »

First of all, we in the industry have tried, numerous times to reason with the Vrt/Vro but they don't want to listen. We fight them on every registration. And another thing people dont realise, they don't hold a data base of Mhs, if your neighbours buy a model x, version y, chassis a, and a month later you buy an identical one, they don't use ones previously registered/vrt'd as a comparison.

I would have thought the 584 would be relatively easily bought in the country? I've seen a good few here. Unless people aren't selling them on.
We haven't imported a S/h MH in over a year iirc, they're cheaper here than abroad.

I'm sure you do try to get the best out of the situation, but talking to 'rank and file' people only gets their opinion. I firmly believe that the farcical situation requires testing in the courts.

It cannot be sustainable that a person/company importing a motorhome is obliged to 'drop their pants and allow the revenue to help themselves' and only be allowed complain after the fact :eek:

I learnt last night that there are 15 other countries that apply a VRT on imported vehicles (I haven't had time to look them up), it might be worth somebody's time to find out how they apply it.

If there's another EU country, that could be very interesting.

Aidan_M_M wrote: »

We don't just talk to the rank and file.

Point taken.
Perhaps I used the wrong term, what I was trying to get across is that in the absence of a reliable database of actual selling prices those who make the rules, as opposed to those who implement them, need to be prodded in the direction of accepting the suppliers invoice price, either directly by the trade or by the courts.

Irishgoatman wrote: »

I learnt last night that there are 15 other countries that apply a VRT on imported vehicles (I haven't had time to look them up), it might be worth somebody's time to find out how they apply it.

If there's another EU country, that could be very interesting.

Since it's a local registration tax it doesn't matter what other countries do. You can't use their systems to compare to ours.

Irishgoatman wrote: »

Just found a piece concerning importing into Spain. This is the only useful piece and even that leaves a lot out. No mention of the rate of duty!

Used car: Imported vehicles owned for more than six months prior to the ownerbecoming resident in Spain are not subject to import duty, provided that VATwas paid in the EU country in which the vehicle was purchased.

We have a similar rule. You have to have lived outside of Ireland for 12 months and owned it for more than 6 months, if you sell it within 12 months of import you're liable for the VRT.

Del2005 wrote: »

Since it's a local registration tax it doesn't matter what other countries do. You can't use their systems to compare to ours.



We have a similar rule. You have to have lived outside of Ireland for 12 months and owned it for more than 6 months, if you sell it within 12 months of import you're liable for the VRT.

Firstly , I said it would be interesting to see how another E.U. country applied import tax, meaning did they have a set formula as compared to our ad hoc system.

Secondly, I was showing the fact that even another E.U. country doesn't state how much or what percentage is charged as import tax.

In other words "We are not alone" (key Xfiles music).

porterboy wrote: »

I traded in an Irish camper in Germany so I should only have to pay vrt on the difference when (if) I bring it back.

I doubt it, since the vehicle you are bringing back needs to be registered here.

But if an Irish person bought the one you had traded in and took it back to Ireland to be registered they'd have no VRT, it would go back onto the Irish plate it was on before. A few people on Motors have done this.

Del2005 wrote: »

......................................But if an Irish person bought the one you had traded in and took it back to Ireland to be registered they'd have no VRT, it would go back onto the Irish plate it was on before. A few people on Motors have done this.

This is correct, in fact I know of one particular dealer in Northern Ireland who keeps the Irish plates and if the new buyer is from The South the vehicle just returns here under the original plates, this is quite legal.

A number of years ago I had an import from the UK which became surplus to requirements, my son emigrated to there and was in need of a car, he simple took it back, got a set of plates for it (I knew the original UK number), told the DVLA all the documents were 'missing' and the car had been out of the country for a while so they issued replacement documents, got it MOT'd, taxed and insured without any difficulty.

Irishgoatman wrote: »

I fail to understand how this could work.
Surely the person in, say Germany, who takes the vehicle as a trade in becomes the owner.
If he were to keep it on his sales lot for a length of time on its Irish plates and then you buy it and bring it back, then you would have to explain, when you send for a change of ownership, who you bought it from and when you became the owner. Also the previous owner needs to sign the transfer of ownership if you're trying to use the original Irish plates.

I was assuming that it would have been transferred to a different EU plate. The Irish reg of a vehicle is tied to it for life. So if it was sold to a German/EU dealer and than a person reimported it to Ireland, there is no more VRT liable as it's already registered in Ireland. If it's still on Irish plates you don't need to do anything apart from get the person you bought it off to send off the VLC with your details and then tax it, it may be slightly more complicated than this.

niloc1951 wrote: »

This is correct, in fact I know of one particular dealer in Northern Ireland who keeps the Irish plates and if the new buyer is from The South the vehicle just returns here under the original plates, this is quite legal.

A number of years ago I had an import from the UK which became surplus to requirements, my son emigrated to there and was in need of a car, he simple took it back, got a set of plates for it (I knew the original UK number), told the DVLA all the documents were 'missing' and the car had been out of the country for a while so they issued replacement documents, got it MOT'd, taxed and insured without any difficulty.

There was no need to do that, the car was already UK type approved so you could have just exported it to the UK and registered it. A mate of mine brought an Irish bike to the UK and had to get loads of stuff to register it, if I took my exUK bike over it would be simple to get it back onto UK plates

A fair amount of prestige cars are being re-exported to the UK now that we are broke and Sterling is strong against the Euro.

Let's see if I get things right this time.
Niloc, in your post you said that your son told the DVLA that vehicle documents were "missing". He got the car from you, you obviously had the documents for the car, albeit under Irish reg. So this was not a lie just a tiny tiny little white fib:rolleyes:.
Second point is that when a vehicle is permently exported from one country to another the original documents have to be sent to the country of origin, as I had to do on both my car and camper, so that country, in this case the U.K. would surely raise a red flag on "missing" documents.
Unless, of course in this case, both the Irish authorities and the U.K. authorities believe the vehicle to be under their jurisdiction.

Still doesn't look too honest to me.

Del2005, you seem to be missing this same point if I understand you correct. Type approval doesn't come into it.
With regard to the lifetime of registration, I find it hard to believe that if you went abroad and purchased a vehicle that had originally been an Irish vehicle, perhaps a good number of years ago, you would not have to pay VRT?. Perhaps someone has first hand knowledge of this.

niloc1951 wrote: »

the missing documents were its original UK papers.
And, I can assure you that the whole transaction was totally above board as there is nothing 'dodgy' about importing a vehicle back to its country of origin, apparently it's not unusual.
All my son had for the DVLA was a bill of sale from me, the Irish RF101, and a note of the original UK reg. no., which had been etched on all the windows.

Now that you say he had all the paperwork as having bought the car, that changes things drastically.
Not exactly as you said, taking the car over, getting new plates and telling DVLA that docs had gone missing.:(

Now I don't know if the U.K. have import duty on second hand cars into the country, but I find it hard to believe that because a vehicle had originated here in Ireland, say 10 years ago, and then been taken to, let's say, U.K.and changed to U.K. registration, that I could go over there, buy it and bring it back to Ireland without having to pay import/VRT on it.

As I said before. if anyone has done it I'm sure we'd all like to hear about it. First hand knowledge would be better that from a friend of a friend who knows someone who did it:).

If it is possible then I feel sure that there would be quite a few Irish reg. taken back to Germany by people returning home due to the recession here and could now be on or coming on to the second hand market.