hi, i've just been looking on the DVLA's website and it says that to (permanently) import a vehicle to the UK it cannot be used (besides riding it to an MOT) until the registration process is completed. This rather thwarts my plans. Has anyone else come across this or gotten around it?
My wife and i are UK citizens, will have been out of the country, and owned the canadian registered bikes for 15 months, have UK drivers licenses and permanent address. according to customs and excise this makes us exempt from paying duty and vat.
We were planning on buying 6 months green card insurance, shipping them to the uk and then permanently importing them once the insurance expired, enabling us to have transport on arrival in the uk and allowing plenty of time to change over speedo, adjust headlights etc to comply with uk law.
does anyone know if this is realistic or has managed to do something similar? my main desire is to be able to ride away from customs and deal with the re-registration later.
would the bikes need to then leave the uk and return for us to import them? or is it just a case of doing paperwork?
Has anyone gone through this and found that the costs (excluding the shipping of course) and hassle weren't worth the effort? - if so does anyone want to buy 2 bandits in eastern US/Canada in July?!???
any advice/info is gratefully accepted
all the best
Adam