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Cars from europe

gazzaman22

Hello, My sister has been living in sweden this past 14 years and is due home to ireland in a month. Thjey have a nissan quaschai Left hand drive.

What options has she got regarding say taking her car to here? is there an import tax?

She hopes to sell it over there and buy a car here, but is she missing a trick by doing that? By this i mean - do you know the way people can import a car from england by being out the state for a good while. can she import a car say from england using this method(or what way does that work?)

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jmreire

As far as I can recall, your car was classed as " household goods" once you owned it for at least the 12 previous months, and therefore free of import taxes. But maybe some one has more updated info, it may have changed by now.??? Driving LHD vehicles in RHD Country's is problematic to say the least, if you do decide to import it, and because its LHD, it won't hold the same value.

Cuddlesworth

Its left hand drive, its worth more money there then here.

bigroad

Sell it there and buy another here.

There is no point bringing it here.

hoodie6029

Higher insurance on a LHD too.

It’s a long shot, but if she could find a decent RHD car in Sweden, buy it there and keep it for 6 months she would be able to bring it in here and avoid VRT.

CiniO

OP.

Firstly your sister can bring her Swedish registered car here, and be exempt from VRT (registration tax). She will need to prove that she lived in Sweden, that she moved residence to Ireland, and that she owned and used that car in Sweden at least for 6 months directly before moving out of there. Also additional condition is that car can't be sold for 12 months after registering it in Ireland. More details here: https://www.revenue.ie/en/importing-vehicles-duty-free-allowances/guide-to-vrt/reliefs-and-exemptions/transfer-of-residence.aspx

Driving LHD car in Ireland, can be a bit awkward, but generally it's something people can get used to. There's certain scenarios where you have to adjust your driving style (f.e. limitations on overtaking, keeping larger distance from bigger vehicles, taking correct angles at junctions to provide visibility). Nothing too crazy though, and it's easily doable by most drivers after a bit of practice. I've been driving RHD cars on the Continent everyday for nearly 4 years, and have been driving LHD car in Ireland for last 4 months, and only issues really are fast-food drive thru's, or motorway toll gates, parking gates. Insurance cost might be slightly higher though. Also there might be an issue of headlights being designed for other side of the road. On newer LED lights, so called "beam bender" stickers might not actually do a good job, so changing whole front light units might be necessery.

Regarding the car value here as LHD vehicle, it's been constantly repeated on this forum that LHD would not keep the same value as regular RHD cars. I've been following LHD car prices advertised on donedeal and the likes here in the past, I think those who were claiming that they were cheaper than regular RHD were actually not right. In the past, UK and Ireland had one of the lowest second hand car prices in Europe. I think main reason for that was fact that RHD cars were not so desirable for export to poorer European countries, as LHD. Therefore, if in example 5 year old RHD Golf in Ireland would cost 2x less than 5 year old LHD Golf in Germany, then 5 year old LHD Golf being offered for sale in Ireland, had a very good chance to sell for better price than RHD. Recent huge increase in prices of second hand cars here though, could have changed the situation completely, so I'm not really sure if any of the above logic still applies.

So whether it's a good idea for your sister to take car from Sweden, it's purely up to her own considertions.