Taking car out of the country to store

homik

I have a beauty of a E46 face lift coupe, straight six petrol in perfect order, a dying breed here, the way things are going. There is a grin on my face each time I hit the accelerator or when I look at her from a distance in an empty carpark.

Most of the time she sits idle and now I need space to park something else. Being over 10 years old, "big" petrol guzzler with high tax she wouldnt appeal to many, even from insurance perspective and for the above reasons not much monetary value in her. I would hate to see her go either

I am looking into taking the beemer out of the country as I couldnt afford keeping two cars on the road and I have nowhere cheap to store her here. With a view of bringing her back in a couple of years, when classic insurance kicks in, just to have a weekend driver.

So if I take her for a trip to the continent, cancel insurance policy and put
in a shed.. is that it? Do I need to notify motor tax office? Or simply just declare off the road and bring her back when time comes (possibly in 5-10 years)? I am sure I will be asked questions when trying to insure and tax again?

I can claim VRT back now when exporting but she will have to be registered in another country within 30 days and then I will have to pay VRT when importing back, so not worth the hassle.

Appreciate advice here. Im sure someone has done similar before?

Thanks

colm_mcm

Are you banking on getting classic tax on it when it's 30 years old? With the number of functioning older cars out there I can't see the current status quo for cheap classic tax and insurance continuing.

Cee-Jay-Cee

You don't need to inform anyone except for the tax office in order to declare it off the road. It's irrelevant where it's being stored.

homik

colm_mcm wrote: »

Are you banking on getting classic tax on it when it's 30 years old? With the number of functioning older cars out there I can't see the current status quo for cheap classic tax and insurance continuing.

I could possibly live with the current tax and keep her on the road in spring/summer. Insuring two cars (with ncb discount on one only) and no space to park/store is what makes it impossible at present.

It's a good point with classic insurance; they might start moving goalposts eventually.

uck51js9zml2yt

If you are wanting to register the vehicle in another country, you need to hand over your VLC to the licencing authority and you will get a local reg/VLC.

If you're just sticking it in a shed with the plan on taking it home in 15 years. Best practice is to do a SORD annually, which can be done online. If it expires you will be liable for tax from when it expires. It needs to be off roaded in the last month of the current tax disk.

Alternately, just transfer ownership to wipe arrears out. THis however may not be possible when the time comes.

CiniO

Few thoughts from me:

You can either declare the car off the road for 12 months, and keep repeating the declaration every 12 months.
Or alternatively, you can not bother with that, and then before you return car back to the road, you will have to get it registered in someone else's name to avoid paying tax arrears for all those years. However fact that it works that way now, doesn't mean it will be the same in 10 to 15 years, so probably safer option would be to have it declared off the year once a year.


Also keep in mind, that most (if not all) countries in the EU, require registration and payment of registration tax if you keep vehicle there.
Obviously even if it's a requirement you can probably get away without doing so by keeping car indoors in the garage, but it doesn't mean it will be legal.
It's the same way if you brought car to Ireland from abroad and parked it up in the garage, you are still liable for paying VRT 30 days from import date.

Also if you're thinking of obtaining VRT refund, you will have to get the car registered abroad, so probably not worth it.

Del2005

I assume that you have somewhere to store it already or are you looking to rent a place? It'll be expensive to rent a shed for years in any country.

5 of 10 years sitting is not good for any car, even storing in a climate controlled area and properly prepped it'll still take work to bring it back to life.

We also don't know what will be allowed on the road in a few years once self driving cars electric cars become the norm.

Ubbquittious

colm_mcm wrote: »

Are you banking on getting classic tax on it when it's 30 years old? With the number of functioning older cars out there I can't see the current status quo for cheap classic tax and insurance continuing.

Is there talk of them starting to come onto the classic car crowd for more money as well now? F'in hell, all good things really do come to an end

colm_mcm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Is there talk of them starting to come onto the classic car crowd for more money as well now? F'in hell, all good things really do come to an end

No, but it's the logical next step. if classic cars become more accessible to the masses, and it's possible and not inconvenient to run a late 80s/early 90s car on classic tax/insurance (much higher supply of serviceable cars), then the fraudulent claim culture that exists will probably make its way into the classic car insurance bubble.

H3llR4iser

colm_mcm wrote: »

No, but it's the logical next step. if classic cars become more accessible to the masses, and it's possible and not inconvenient to run a late 80s/early 90s car on classic tax/insurance (much higher supply of serviceable cars), then the fraudulent claim culture that exists will probably make its way into the classic car insurance bubble.

30 years is on hell of a long time for a car; They need to be properly cared for to reach that age in a functional and usable state. Sure enough there'll be the odd banger, but most cars will be scrapped before reaching that age simply because servicing costs will increase as it becomes hard to acquire parts; Also, modern cars have plenty more stuff that will fail over time compared to the last of the "bare bones" cars from the late '90s and face a "technological obsolescence" issue never seen before; Think...trying to get data off a floppy disk today.

Plenty of places in Europe have a 20 years limit, not 30, for a car to be declare "classic" and avail of the same benefits - they don't have "scores of classic cars" going around. In Italy they tried to increase the limit to 30 years with the same excuse (the reasoning was "too many Fiat PANDA registered as classics" - I kid you not!) and failed miserably as it was clear it would produce more harm than good - anybody owning "small change" classic just for the fun of it, would have scrapped it when faced with the cost hike; in return causing the government more expense to dispose of the waste than the tax shortfall would have been.

Then again, likely in a decade we'll all be ferried to places they allow by our all-seeing Google and Apple overlords in overgrown kitchen appliances, so it's a false problem really. Chances are that "making car noises with your mouth" will be a death penalty offense by then :P