Register vehicle from commercial to private?

smiley girl

Hi, I didn't want to drag up any old threads so I hope it's ok to start this one. I know the subject has been done to death, but I can't find the answer I need in the other ones (as good as they were )

Basically my friend has gotten himself a van. He won't be doing any work with it, he just wants it cos apparently they're handy, he had one for several years in the past & likes them. He insured it commercially last week & today went to tax it commercially. He was given that form looking for the Tax Registration number. He doesn't have one, so maybe he should be getting the van taxed privately.

The question is this: Do you have to change/register the 'commercial vehicle' to 'private vehicle' & change the insurance policy to a private policy & then tax it privately.

Sorry for being so girly but any advice would be great.

_Conrad_

You can change the tax to private alright. But a problem your friend may encounter is that he may have trouble insuring that as his private car rather than commercial insurance. He needs ordinary private insurance if he's not using the van for work but some, if not all companies don't want to insure a van when privately taxed and used as an every day car.
At present i've run into this with AXA, they won't quote me for private use on an old jeep changed from commercial to private tax. (It even came in originally from japan in the mid 90s and in the late 90s was changed to commercial, now changed back yet they still won't class it as a the same as a car)

101sean

I use AXA to insure my Defender which is passenger, had no trouble. Don't try insuring over the phone, computer will say no, go to their local office or a broker.

It's also covered for work as any policy on a private can be, just not covered for carrying goods.

_Conrad_

101sean wrote: »

I use AXA to insure my Defender which is passenger, had no trouble. Don't try insuring over the phone, computer will say no, go to their local office or a broker.

It's also covered for work as any policy on a private can be, just not covered for carrying goods.

Sadly sean, office (limerick) says no too. For me anyway. It's fine about the landcruiser as that's a 7 seater and was always taxed private (oh the joy of it!) but not the trooper. They reckon they won't cover it because it's only got two seats now (book says that too). Yet they covered me on an ancient fiesta van before, on the dogdy grounds that "it only says fiesta 1.1 3 door on the reg cert" as opposed to van, yet they knew it was a van body.

I should also add, has your defender got all the seats?

littlesthobo

101sean wrote: »

I use AXA to insure my Defender which is passenger, had no trouble. Don't try insuring over the phone, computer will say no, go to their local office or a broker.

It's also covered for work as any policy on a private can be, just not covered for carrying goods.

Im insured with Axa aswell, and when insuring it i told them it was for private use and would be taxed privately, they said that was fine but as it was a commercial vehicle it would have to be insured as that, a commercial. Hope this helps. Van is for non work use as well.

smiley girl

littlesthobo wrote: »

Im insured with Axa aswell, and when insuring it i told them it was for private use and would be taxed privately, they said that was fine but as it was a commercial vehicle it would have to be insured as that, a commercial. Hope this helps. Van is for non work use as well.

So the van has to be insured private before it can be taxed private. (I know that's probably a daft question ) Am I right in assuming that private insurance is more expensive also?

littlesthobo

smiley girl wrote: »

So the van has to be insured private before it can be taxed private. (I know that's probably a daft question ) Am I right in assuming that private insurance is more expensive also?

My insurance came down in price by €140, moved from a 99 1.2 fiesta to a 07 1.4 Auris van. I sorted the insurance side first as i wanted to be sure i could get insured on it before i bought and taxed it. They will look for insurance details on the motor tax form anyways

https://www.motortax.ie/OMT/pdf/RF100A_en.pdf

_Conrad_

smiley girl wrote: »

So the van has to be insured private before it can be taxed private. (I know that's probably a daft question ) Am I right in assuming that private insurance is more expensive also?

No it can be taxed private no bother just by filling out some stuff in the motor tax office, it's just insuring it properly, (with some companies), for daily use as a private car rather than commercial use as a van seems to be a problem. It's one i've encountered anyway. They seem to be ok with insuring it, but it's a "commercial policy"... and i'd be worried that as such you wouldn't actually be covered if you had an accident while doing something like driving home from late movie at midnight or going to mass or some kind of sport or something on a sunday.

The change of tax class is easly though and can be done now before anything else if you wanted.

smiley girl

_Conrad_ wrote: »

No it can be taxed private no bother just by filling out some stuff in the motor tax office, it's just insuring it properly, (with some companies), for daily use as a private car rather than commercial use as a van seems to be a problem. It's one i've encountered anyway. They seem to be ok with insuring it, but it's a "commercial policy"... and i'd be worried that as such you wouldn't actually be covered if you had an accident while doing something like driving home from late movie at midnight or going to mass or some kind of sport or something on a sunday.

The change of tax class is easly though and can be done now before anything else if you wanted.

Thank you very much for this information Conrad, much appreciated