Foreign resident buying a car in Ireland

laurah8882

Does anyone have any experience with buying a car as a non-resident in Ireland? I am Australian and doing the Mongol Rally, and would like to start in Ireland.  Insurance seems possible, but registration of a second hand car seems tricky.  I can register it at my friends address, but I have no proof I live there (and I don't).  Also, can you register it online? Or do you need to go into a branch? We may buy it before we get to Ireland in person, can we wait a month or two before registering it?

pilly

laurah8882 wrote:

Does anyone have any experience with buying a car as a non-resident in Ireland? I am Australian and doing the Mongol Rally, and would like to start in Ireland. Insurance seems possible, but registration of a second hand car seems tricky. I can register it at my friends address, but I have no proof I live there (and I don't). Also, can you register it online? Or do you need to go into a branch? We may buy it before we get to Ireland in person, can we wait a month or two before registering it?

Not sure what you mean by registration. The process of buying a second hand car is a change of ownership not a new registration.

Do you intend taking the car out of Ireland?

laurah8882

Sorry, in Australia you would still call that registration, but yes I'm enquiring about change of ownership.  Yes, the car will be taken out of Ireland.

laurah8882

Sorry, in Australia you would still call that registration, but yes I'm enquiring about change of ownership.  Yes, the car will be taken out of Ireland.

pilly

laurah8882 wrote:

Sorry, in Australia you would still call that registration, but yes I'm enquiring about change of ownership. Yes, the car will be taken out of Ireland.

Yeah, that's a much more complicated situation altogether. I'm not even sure how you're saying insurance won't be an issue?

There's no harm in getting the number for the office responsible for changing ownership and ringing them, they're very helpful. I'll look it up for you later when I'm at my desk.

pilly

And no you definitely can't wait a month or two before doing it. The person selling would then still technically be the owner of the car and therefore liable for anything that happens.

In fact most sellers insist on doing it themselves for that very reason.

Bigus

Ok,
This has been discussed before in depth , regarding the export of irish cars.

The Department of environment in Shannon which handle vehicle registration carts will actually give out misleading information.

Specifically,
To import a car or to traverse a lot of countries( particularly Eastern Europe) you absolutely have to have the VLC or log book/ identity papers for the car with you.
Shannon officially in their wisdom doesn't agree with the VLcs leaving the country.

So in practice the vendor gives the the exporter the VLC and writes a cover letter to Shannon stating the car is exported and provide foreign address, or in some cases with a dodgy buyer the vendor can insist on getting a name and irish address , and put through the system, so the buyer has to wait a week for the VLC to arrive at said irish address, before export, but the vendor has the comfort of the car being actually officially out of their name .

However in this case if the car is been used here before export , a Name and Irish address will have to be provided to the seller , and the new VLC will be issued to this name and posted to this address within a few days.

Donald Duck/ Saul Goodman could be the name ,there are no identity checks , and once the address is valid the VLC can be collected from nominated address, and exported without further action.

P.S there're is fantastic value here in Ireland in perfectly good cars over 10, 12 years old as they can't be insured by locals.

laurah8882

This is fantastic information, thank you so much! So buy the car, put the log book in my name at my friends Irish address, wait for the log book to arrive at said address and good to go! Much appreciated!

K.Flyer

laurah8882 wrote: »

This is fantastic information, thank you so much! So buy the car, put the log book in my name at my friends Irish address, wait for the log book to arrive at said address and good to go! Much appreciated!

That's the easy part..
Insurance may be a lot trickier.
Some insurance companies are not quoting for older cars and some will refuse you as you are not resident in Ireland.
If you driving the car here and are stopped by Garda (police) without correct insurance documents, your car will be taken from you and court appearance and fines will follow.
Plus the car will also need to have a roadworthy certificate (NCT) and road tax.
All three items have a disc which needs to be displayed on the windscreen.

colm_mcm

Would buying and insuring a car elsewhere in Europe make more sense?

shaunr68

OP would also need the insurance policy to include full EU cover, with no time limits on foreign use. Further afield you can usually buy green card cover at the border but typically only on a third party basis and doubtful it's worth the paper it's written on.

shaunr68

colm_mcm wrote: »

Would buying and insuring a car elsewhere in Europe make more sense?

I would say so. France or Germany, buy a left hand drive vehicle and the added bonus that the insurance industry isn't up it's own arse.