buying abroad, insurance? registration?

quilmore

hi all
doing my maths for a fjr1300as, spain seems right, vrt for an 08 is 850
can I ride it back? what about insurance and number plates?
can it be insured on foreign numberplates?
do I have to have spanish registrations on my name or can they be straight into irish ones?

any shared experience on this will be appreciated

KamiKazi

When I bought my SV from the UK Quinn gave me a month to change it to Irish plates, was no bother at all. Just make sure you're covered to ride in Spain if you're riding it home.

mikesp

quilmore wrote: »

hi all
doing my maths for a fjr1300as, spain seems right, vrt for an 08 is 850
can I ride it back? what about insurance and number plates?
can it be insured on foreign numberplates?
do I have to have spanish registrations on my name or can they be straight into irish ones?

any shared experience on this will be appreciated

Hi mate, I can't help you with your bureaucracy questions (I'll try to take a look tonight, because I'm really interested) but I want to warn you about something: during the last 2-3 years some UK based gangs tried to make scams to people selling their bikes online (I'll give more details about the scam at the end of the message).

This is widely known on the Spanish bikers community so I suggest you to always include an explanation/clarification on your contact emails to avoid people thinking that you are a scammer and ignoring your emails.

On this page you can filter by brand/model/year and by province. This is very handy if you want to search motorbikes around Santander/Cantabria, to be close to the ferry that goes to Plymouth (there are no ferries Spain->Ireland ATM AFAIK).


Just so you know the scam is something like: They send an email to the seller (in English or a poorly translated Spanish) asking for more information about the bike. After the first contact they offer to send him the cost of the bike and some extra money over their typical scammers-bank (WesternUnion and the likes), as a proof of seriousness. Then they request the seller to send back the extra money by bank transfer and the document of the motorbike, their personal documents, etc. while they send a transport company to pick the motorbike.

If the seller trust them he will send the extra money back, because he will see on his bank account the bank transfer from the scammers. The problem is that it seems that the scammers can cancel that transfer days after, so once they receive the money from the seller, they cancel their original bank transfer.

On other hand they also request the motorbike documents, because with them they usually do the inverse scam: They put cheap motorbikes on sale, requesting buyers for a deposit. As a proof of the thing being real they send a copy of the documents of the previous bike... so some people trust them and got screwed.


Good luck, I'm pretty sure that it will be easy for you to find a motorbike that suits you, the second hand market in Spain is huge compared with the one we have here.

quilmore

thanks mikesp
I'm a native spanish speaker so will be able to talk to the seller directly
that's the site I was looking, thanks
my plan was to take a ryanair and buy it cash

was thinking barcelona / zaragoza because I have friends over there
but will check Santander now

colm_c

If you're buying in europe, you'll also need to change the headlight unit (or switch it to the left hand drive mode).

Otherwise you'll be blinding every fecker at night!

I know for my BM, it would have been 500 for a new unit if I had bought a european one, so can be a nasty surprise if you're not prepared!

I considered europe when buying my bike (in '08) but it worked out cheaper and less hassle to go to the uk, when ferries, hotels and petrol considered.

Also ensure it has 6,000km's on the clock by the time you bring it to the VRT office, otherwise you must also pay VAT on the price of the bike.

quilmore

fair point about the lights, thanks
any good sites to buy from the north/GB?

colm_c

autotrader.co.uk is always a good bet.

Stick in the postcode for holyhead and it'll tell you how far from the port the bike is!

As always, get the bike checked out for finance, etc. before parting with any cash.

carsQhere

You may find the following links useful;

http://www.magireland.org/information-sheets/buying-abroad-importing/

http://www.magireland.org/information-sheets/procedure-for-vrt/