Foriegn Car Registration. ****LOST IN DVLA LAND*****

Ok guys...here goes.

Some of you remember my earlier posting bout getting our Austrian (EU) car transferred over to UK plates. DVLA requires we fill out the V55/5 form and get MOT test as well as GETTTING OUR CAR INSURED PRIOR TO GETTING IT REGISTERD. Well we didnt think much of the latter until we realized the HIGHWAY ROBBERY COST of insuring our car as a foriegn registerd vehicle....£2,300 per year ...DVLA insisted we contact one of two companies that insure foriegn registerd cars ...thats right, there are only two officially recognized insurers in the whole country that insure foriegn cars.

Suffice to say we do not intend on " being robbed " so we have been looking at other insurance companies...well here is where it gets a bit tricky.
We have called other insurance companies and got a quote for £276.00 per year..the only thing is we did not point out that the car is foriegn registerd. We provided the license plate and other relevant info such as our UK drivers license and make/model of car etc etc.

Basically our main objective right now is to re-new our residential parking permit ( no, we dont have off-street parking where i live ) which Hackney council will not renew unless we provide them with UK insurance ( they did give us a one-time 6 months visitor parking permit but that is only a one time thing ).
About 3 months ago i did speak with a German guy who lived on my street, he told me he managed to get his parking permit re-newed by doing exactly that...he got an online quote but did not point out the car was foriegn registerd...i believe he said he got the insurance certificate mailed to him within three days. Unfortunately he no longer lives on our street so i cant refer to him .

Anyway if any of you can shed any constructive light on this issue i will be gratefull....please, withhold any moral judgements you might like to dispense on this issue...thanks heaps!

Until later
Zu
PS if issued with this certificate, do you guys think it will also work for submitting to DVLA along with MOT test result ?

Not a moral judgement, but if you're asking for advise that may be about how to do something illegal, please take it elsewhere.

Insure you car, get it registered and Mot'ed and taxed.  Then look into cheaper insurance.  The laws are there to protect us all from cars that are not road worthy.  We all have to do it.  You won't find advise how to get around it on this forum. 

I should have known this would be the predictable mis-understood response..there is nothing illegal about not surrendering information that was never asked for in the first place...i am simply asking if i could manage to register my car with insurance i obtained LEGALLY, but just not the way DVLA out-sourcers want you to...so before you go convicting me of a crime..please re-read my email.

I was thinking back to the other thread a few days ago and wondering how you were getting on with this problem....... 

DVLA is a mine of misinformation, and the staff there have become notorious for telling people that they must do certain things when in fact no such requirement exists.

Their claim that you must insure directly with one of the companies they specify is nonsense.    The law requires you to carry public liability insurance for your use of the vehicle, and that's it.    So long as the policy is issued by a properly licensed/registered insurance company and covers your use of the car, it is perfectly legal.   

It may well be that there are only two underwriters in the U.K. which will cover non-UK registered vehicles, but just as with any other insurance there are many brokers and the negotiated rates from one to another can vary widely even when they're using the same underwriter.   

We have called other insurance companies and got a quote for £276.00 per year..the only thing is we did not point out that the car is foriegn registerd. We provided the license plate and other relevant info such as our UK drivers license and make/model of car etc etc.

If they had any problem with it being foreign-registsred, I would have thought they would have queried it when you gave them the Austrian license number -- Unless it happens to look like the same format as a U.K. number.

i am simply asking if i could manage to register my car with insurance i obtained LEGALLY, but just not the way DVLA out-sourcers want you to...

If the insurance is legally valid for your use of the car, then DVLA has no grounds to refuse it. 

Paul_1966..
I needed to hear that..thanks.
I am in the process of locating an MOT test site in my area and once i complete that requirment, i will sign up with the insurance company i found myself and submit all to DVLA.
Until later
Zu.

 

Good luck with it all.  Insurance can be a nightmare to sort out, especially when you run into an unhelpful clerk who doesn't actually know the rules but still insists that you must or must not do something.

It's similar to the way that some post office staff will refuse to issue a tax disc when you present an insurance certificate which doesn't explicitly refer to the car.   That's another very common problem, and even some DVLA clerks will try to tell you the same thing.    You just need to make a fuss, demand to speak to somebody in charge, and not accept everything you're told as being true without double checking (especially if it's going to cost you an extra two grand!).

It's hard enough when you've grown up with system.  It must be very frustrating when you're still trying to come to terms with it.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Paul...

Quote "some post office staff will refuse to issue a tax disc when you present an insurance certificate "
Are you referring to car insurance ? Is this something i need to worry about ? Tomorrow i am going to pick up the V55/5 form from a local DVLA office and head straight to a neighbourhood MOT inspection garage. I wanted to get the MOT test done first before i actually sign up for insurance...hope that is ok.
Zufan

Quote "some post office staff will refuse to issue a tax disc when you present an insurance certificate "
Are you referring to car insurance ?

Yes,  but in case you missed it,  that was qualified by "an insurance certificate which doesn't explicitly refer to the car."

Just about all British insurance policies cover the policyholder to drive a car belonging to somebody else.   As well as being handy to allow you to drive a frined's car etc., it's also been useful for multi-car families where the various policies can be arranged so that everybody can drive any car without having to have a separate policy for each vehicle. 

The problem is that if you go to the post office to get a tax disc for one car with your insurance certificate which names a different car, some clerks don't like it and try to refuse to issue the tax disc, even though there's a clause on the certificate which states clearly that the person is insured to drive anybody else's car.

Is this something i need to worry about ?

As you'll be obtaining insurance which explicitly refers to your car, no.       (Sorry, I  didn't mean to give you something to worry about -- I was just using this as another example of where DVLA and post office clerks will often give you misinformation.)

I wanted to get the MOT test done first before i actually sign up for insurance...hope that is ok.

No problem at all (assuming of course, that you are still legally covered on your Austrian insurance to drive to the MoT station).     The MoT station won't ask to see insurance or anything like that.