After reading your signature I had to laugh really hard. Please take your own advise :-):

Dear Grant,

Your site rules and regulations are nowhere to be seen. Your site seems to tolerate the breaking of the law and take it as part of "adventure motorcycling". I see no clear guidelines for language utilized also.

I come from a non-english speaking background and that includes the way I think and act. I am quite normal and I think I do well in English. But I am a Latin.

I thought this was an international site. My mistake.

Judging people by your own standards, without considering, for a moment, that this person may have different values and consequently different views, is an oxymoron to all what this site appears to encourage.

You also seem to know by heart what other people think about my persona. Quite a remarkable skill.

The day someone posts in this site that they "accidentaly" committed another type of offense, I expect all sympathetic responses also and advise about how to avoid the penalty.

When a friend tells me he screwed up I tell him he is an idiot and explain the situation as coldly and bluntly as I can. I do not go around speculating about scenarios and trying to justify my friends actions.

That is what I did in here. I thought I was amongst friends. Irony is a skill on my neck of the woods.

If you guys think for a moment that I was just playing cocky from my expert's armchair, then perhaps you are projecting.

You may not like the tone utilized, so what? no big crime, aren't we all adults? I was clear from a legal standpoint and you missed that. The bottom line is that smuggling is smuggling and ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it.

Attack the message, not the messenger. You are unable to. What this guy did is wrong and is idiotic. You are wrong in advising this guy to go back there to collect the bike.

At the end of the day, it is the same chaos of the undeveloped world that protects you from getting into real trouble. Go and do this in your own country, the penalty will be so swift, harsh and blunt that my literary style would be lame in comparison

Good luck to you all with your adventures in the third-world.

Keep breaking the law far away from home, then go back and write a book about it encouraging people to do it also.

This might help: http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...vb_board_usage

Please could you take your discussions with Grant off-line? It would be useful to now be able to make suggestions on how the OP can sort his problem, without further hijacking. Feel free to contact me off-line too if you wish.
Regards
Chris

Relax buddy, and jump off that high horse you got there:thumbdown:. The original poster of the thread asked for advice based on a possible mistake he made and looking for a possible solution - he did not asked to be insulted/judged or anything like that.

Excellent post Grant, you've hit the nail right on the head! And you offered some possible solutions, which is afterall the reason of this thread I thought.
If you can't help, don't start a discussion. Even if you think you hold the one and only thruth. Less yapping, more riding!

You can contact the guys from Belgium who had the same problem at crossingtheborder2009 {AT} gmail {D-O-T} com. I think they got it sorted out eventualy.

Lets move this thread away from personal innuendo and deal in facts.

1. Despite what Xtrovert has stated above, it is possible to import a vehicle into South Africa having previously entered on a carnet. To do so will require payment of the relevant import duty, after which the carnet can be discharged. There are a number of other posters on this site who have done the same.

2. Import duty for second hand vehicles in SA is relatively high. It is generally recognised that import duty in Namibia is less, therefore there may be an advantage in disposing of the vehicle in Namibia. Given you aren't there, this may be difficult.

3. The only other option I see is to take the vehicle out of SADC, discharge the carnet, bring it on a TIP and then sell it. I am personally aware of people entering South Africa on a TIP without having to post a bond. Obviously the purchaser will then be responsible for any import duty.

I agree. It's certainly possible to import a bike when entered with a carnet. I once planned to do the same thing and contacted South African customs. It's also true that the import duties are relatively high, but when entered with a carnet, the duty costs are based on the value of the bike written in the carnet. The lower the value in the carnet, the lower the import duties.

Dear friends,

First of all, sorry for not getting back to you sooner and thanks to everybody that shared their useful thoughts.

To get a few things clear; we already tried to pay the import tax (the buyer will pay this) but we weren't able to since we first had to get our carnets stamped. We went to the customs office and also spent some time at a company that deals with importing vehicles. We were told all was ok so we were surprised (when back home) that things were not o.k.

Enfin, it looks like going back might not be a good solutions after all. I must say that we still have good contact with the buyer and we trusted him with our carnets (6000 euro) so we'll trust him also with the rest of the finances etc.

For now it looks like we have to find a way to convince the customs that we were trying to do everything legally and that we would still like to pay the import tax so that we can get the carnets back.

Not sure how we're going to do it but I'll start making some phone calls tomorrow. Will keep u posted.


Thanks!

still working on it.. for those who are interested; here is a trailer of our trip: Trailer "Enschede - Capetown overland 2010/2011" on Vimeo Will keep you posted on the progress @ customs...

Ok, we are back with some news...

We have managed to register both the bikes in South Africa. The main conclusion is that we haven't done anything illegal and without paying one bribe we managed to have our bikes, that were still on a carnet, registered on our SA friends names in Cape Town. They had to do a lot of paperwork and it for sure wasn't hassle free but this proves that it is possible. Just be positive and keep looking for options...

I would like to thank everybody here for helping us out!

Cheers,


Waztafel

red tape
 

ive just gone through all the crap of trying to import my africa twin into australia after having it here for 2 yrs on a carnet the answer was NO.now i have to send it back to the UK and bring it back in as parts minus the frame so ive then got to find a frame out here that i can use.i might be onto a XL650V frame but now have to pleed with the vehicle licence dept to let me put a 750 engine in a 650 frame and everyone i speak to asks me is it worth it .......F%$K yeah!!!!its an africa twin