Sorry, my question below wasn’t clear (so please read this one).

I meant “If travelling out of the UK with the vehicle when the licence expires, do you in fact renew it (possibly more than once, if away for a long time), and if so, how do you do this?

Also, the matter of the MOT test might arise. If this is due while overseas with the vehicle -and since the MOT is needed in order to licence the vehicle- how is this matter overcome?

In order to get a road fund license in the UK you need to present valid insurance and a current MoT; as far as I know there is no way around this.

In addition, you need to make a SORN or statutory off road notification if you are not using the bike on public roads and not taxing it. They fine you £80 for not doing this if you don't pay the tax.

It's all a bit of a nause really but you could export the bike if you are going away for a significant amount of time....

SW

I'm guessing you mean if you're going for more than a year? Because if you're going for nine months and lets say had four months on your current tax disc, you could get a refund on it and apply for a new year's one.

But if it's more than a year, I don't know, I'd guess SORN-ing it would be an option, as after all it's not on the public highway (in the UK) anymore, but then what do you do when you come back? I suppose you could say you were on the way to the MOT Station? Probably best to contact the DVLA directly, I have to say I've never had a problem and they've always e-mailed me back very quickly.

In France I see plenty of old UK cars with old tax-discs on, which clearly have no MOT either, and of course the big question then is, if any of these has an accident, will the insurance pay out?

So, I'd ring your insurer too and explain, and see if they would cover and get it in writing, I reckon in many ways that's more important than a tax disc.

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As in many previous threads -

UK Road Tax is only payable for UK registered vehicles when using public roads in UK. ie within the jurisdiction of UK Road Traffic Acts etc. If not on UK public roads not payable.

You can even apply for a part refund as you leave.

If a UK vehicle registered vehicle is not to be taxed (or a refund is requested because it is not going to be used on UK public roads) a SORN declaration must be made (free) that it is not going to be used on UK public roads. This must be done again annually. It can be done 'on-line' (ie from anywhere in the World) during the month before and after the Road Tax or SORN expires.

MOT is similarly only necessary if the vehicle is going to be used within the jurisdiction of the UK Road Traffic Acts (ie UK public roads).

On returning to UK it is permitted to use the vehicle without MOT and Road Tax to get to and from a MOT Test Station for a pre-arranged test appointment. The station can be anywhere in the land, not near the point of entry or your home - if stopped you be able to show you are reasonably en-route and give details of the appoiment time/date/place so they can check up.

So, book the test as you disembark, or while you are still away.

Insurance is a necessity throughout the EU and most of the rest of the World, so it is assumed you will have that anyway.

Never NEVER NEVER ask the DVLA. The only people you get to speak to generally know nothing!

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Vitim Bridge Clubwww.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=533442
www.sibirskyextreme.com

Yep, here we go again.

Trouble is that when you de register your vehicle in the UK, to comply with the law in practically every country that you visit it must be registered. Your Green Card insurance or legal minimum insurance (EU) will be invalid as soon as you de register.

Within the Vienna Convention countries its an absolute must to have current vehicle registration to be legal and comply with the international treaty that allows free(ish) movement of vehicles - and a lot of coppers and border guards KNOW what a UK tax disc looks like, as well as the uniform registration documents. Its even harder for UK residents as so many people speak and read English and can easily read a UK V5.

Vienna Convention summary;
"The vehicle must meet all technical requirements to be legal for road use in the country of registration.

The driver must carry the vehicle's registration certificate, and if the vehicle is not registered in the name of an occupant of the vehicle, proof of the driver's right to be in possession of the vehicle."

If you travel with a carnet, then a condition on the carnet is current registration, some countries will only permit entry on a carnet based on the length of registration that is left.

I see a business opportunity here!!!

So the answer is to buy a new bike which will not need an MoT for three years; tax and insure it remotely - get the disc posted to you and you're away. Of course the difficulty is buying a new bike....

SW

I presume then that the Vienna Convention equally applies to any MOT then, as that's a legal requirement for a British vehicle too?

I see a nice little dodge though, bring your vehicle to France, I'll register it at my address, and then you won't EVER need a tax disc as we don't have them here.

DVLA, I wouldn't telephone for a response, I'd e-mail them, you don't usually get and instant reply, you'll get a considered reply a couple of days later, and that will have the correct information and help within.

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OK- say it meets it! Just there is no requirement to have a certificate to that effect (MOT) with you. Some countries have no periodic Technical Examination for all or some classes of vehicles.


LOL.
UK Registration is known a Continuous Registration and is perpetual unless it is declared as sold, scrapped or permanantly exported. (See Final notes on a V5,Page4).
Hence the obligation is to SORN it or to buy Road Tax EACH AND EVERY year for ever and ever.
Therefore a UK Registration is always 'current', even if the Road Tax or SORN is not. So this Carnet condition is not a starter for UK vehicles.

-- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Steve.
Got your PM. Will reply fully later. In the meantime these are some similar threads
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...mot-road-32649
and
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...rn-again-34052
and
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ax-while-25088
- - - - - - - - - - - - -- -

Alex/Red
I think your local fuz are after UK and other non French registered vehicles that are more or less permanantly in France and should really be registered locally. EC Directive 83/182 allows for visiting vehicles for visits of up to six months in a 12 month period - thereafter local registration necessary. We all know this is being considerably 'extended' by many ex-pats.

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Vitim Bridge Clubwww.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=533442
www.sibirskyextreme.com

However, how many foreign fuz would look for a tax disc, I don't know. There are plenty of Brits living in France and Spain that dodge the tax disc... with seeming impunity...

There was a widely reported roundup of UK (un)registered cars in Spain last year when we were there in April. It was conducted with English speaking coppers and by all accounts UK officials were involved with providing additional information from the DVLA about the vehicles and drivers. The German residents had also been caught, but they are very easy to spot with date stickers on their number plates.

Oh I'm sure they are after those ex-pats who think they can get away with not re-registering, my point was more that if say you're on your way back through Europe and you don't have a current tax-disc on display, they might impound first and ask questions later. There's enough illegally used British cars here for them to all be aware what a UK tax disc should look like.

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In practice, once you're off the beaten track (presumably most people on the HUBB are not just planning to drive around the EU), local officials do not know exactly what the source-country document should look like. Nobody outside the UK has ever looked at my tax disc or MOT, certainly not in Africa - it's more common that somebody asks me for the "carte grise", raises an eyebrow when they see that I've given them a totally different document to what they usually handle, then they get on with filling in forms and rubber-stamping.

Even in the EU I've been asked for my card license dozens of times (by vehicle rental agencies &c) but nobody has ever asked to see the paper counterpart. It's meaningless to them; it's a UK-specific piece of paper.

If you tell the DVLA you've exported or SORN'd your vehicle, you still have the V5. What, do you think, are the chances that an Algerian or Peruvian or Iranian border official will read the V5, and phone a foreign government agency to verify that a vehicle would still be road-legal in a different country? (hint: you'd have to translate the term "SORN" for them first, give them a phone, and tell them the DVLA's number).

Turn it the other way round. Imagine you're an official in the UK and you do a routine stop (maybe a border check) on a foreign motorist. They hand you a couple of official-looking documents which you've never seen before. Maybe one of them is laminated or has a rubber stamp on it. The documents are written in a foreign language and seem to have been issued by an acronym-agency in another country. There is no phone number for the agency on the document, and anyway you don't speak that language well (or at all). Your official instructions are that any paperwork valid in the source country should be accepted here. What would you do next?

I can't believe I'm still subscribed to this thread...

To reiterate my previous post/s - since UK Road Fund Licence is only legally required if a UK registered vehicle* is kept or used on UK roads... anything else they tell you is bullsh!t in a lame attempt to prop up the threadbare government coffers...

If you want to pay anything between £100 and £400 a year to the government while you are away traveling, and renew your road tax on-line go ahead... or, you can SORN your vehicle, and re-SORN it on line, and pay them nothing.

The only paperwork foreign police or boarder controls are interested in is your vehicle ownership papers (eg. British V5) and most importantly, Insurance.

As long as you have both of those with you (either originals, photocopies, laminates or whatever), noone is going to give you any hassle if you are passing through their boarder/country.

I'm off to enjoy Christmas now, even though this year I'm stuck in this officious bureaucratic nightmare that the UK has become...

Toot toot!

xxx

*personally I think the government is trying to make up the shortfall in roadtax they can't collect from the thousands of foreign registered vehicles that use our roads everyday, by stitching up their own citizens - like so much else in the country...

I have followed all the posts, here and on other websites. Seems to me that the key thing is whether you are still validly insured abroad, if you don't have mot or road tax. That is just not worth risking. Anyone know the answer? And in that case do you inform your insurer that you have SORNed your vehicle but are driving it abroad?

Out of interest I e-mailed the DVLA using the link I posted above and here's the reply.


Thank you for your email.

You would not be able to make a SORN declaration with regard to your vehicle because it is out of the country. SORN can only be declared on a vehicle when it is laid up within the confines of the UK.

Because you would not be able to tax your vehicle nor declare it off road let alone permanently export it you would need to write a letter into us. It would be necessary for you to quote the registration number and for you to explain what you intend to do with the vehicle over the next couple of years or so. You can even ask for this correspondence to be placed on the vehicle record so that you are not bothered about any fines or penalties with regard to this vehicle.

The address to write or fax into is;
Vehicle Customer Services, DVLA, Swansea, SA99 1BA.
Fax No. 01792 - 782378.

I hope that this information has clarified matters for you.
Regards
David S Evans
Motoring : Directgov

So it would appear to be perfectly OK to drive round the world in an untaxed, unsorned vehicle according to the DVLA, and I'd suggest that if anyone wants to do this they let them know, that way when the shit hits the fan you can point at their records and say "I told you so".

Might be interesting for a few other people to mail them to see if you get the same answer.

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