Leavaing a Car in Spain

We are wondering about driving down to Roda and leaving our car there.  We would only be at Roda from time to time so it will not be out on the road that much.  Can anyone tell me what the rules and regulations are about tax, insurance and whether or not we would need to register it.  If it is on the road for only a few weeks of the year would we have to change anything.

I am certainly no expert and there is good advice available online and even in Driving in Spain thread on Spain Discussion Boards but I do think it is a very complicated issue, especially if you wish to remain legal.

Imported cars are not permitted to remain in Spain for more than a certain time, not sure how long, poss 6 months

consider

MOT and road tax or Spanish equivalent ITV

Insurance normally only covers country where car is kept and unlikely Spanish insurance would cover UK reg car

Lights

Cars can be re registerd but can be costly, though some locals have indeed done it, worth checking with them

I did some research online many years ago but unsure where to point you now.

Thanks Chris.  I will do some more research.  Was hoping there was an easy answer but didn't really expect that to be the case.  See you in May.

Have pm you

Hi Yvette

Not sure what Colney has advised in his PM, but as Chris has said if you want to have your car in Spain legally then you need to re-register it.

MOT and Insurance are the key ones and it will be hard to get either of these in Spain if the car is not legally registered.

I'm almost sure the period is 6 months that a UK car can remain in Spain without registering it BUT you may find that your UK insurance will not cover it for this long. When we forst came her in our UK car our insurance was only valid for 90 days. Our MOT was due about that time anyway and we could not find a sing ITV station in Spain that would do it legally - although I have heard there are "dodgy" ways of getting round this.

The process of reregistering is relative easy, if a bit tedious, and including getting lights changed or adjusted it will cost about €1000. There are companies who will do it for you so you don't get stuck in the bureaucracy and hassle.

Thanks Bev.  I think maybe we will just drive down and drive back.  We thought about leaving a car there because we are hoping to buy a new one here and instead of trading ours in we thought it might be a good idea to bring it over to Spain and leave it.  Well, it seemed a good idea at the time.   I doubt we will ever be there for longer than 90 days but will also check details with our car insurance company.

Hi,

We are thinking about buying a car in Sapin and leaving it there for use when we come over.

Could anybody give us ball park figure for Insurance, Road Tax/Registration, ITV, and storage?

Thanks,

Mike.

Your questions aren't easy to answer but here you go as a ballpark. These are based on our car, which is an Astra Estate 1.7 Diesel, and we live in Almoradi in Valencia

Insurance - €350 (we have full no claims)

ITV (= MOT) - ITV test cost varies between provinces and according to the vehicle size. Not required until 4 years old, then every 2 years, then every year from 10 years old. We always take our car to be serviced and get them to take it for the ITV to ensure it doesn't fail. Some test centres are a lot more strict than others and can be quite picky on tiny things. Our cerificate cost is about €40 and we paid €25 for them to take it to the test centre for us.

Road tax - also dependant on a) your province b) town c) engine size d) fuel type. Last year ours was €116 on our 7 year old car. There is a website where you can check how much it SHOULD be but it isn't always accurate.

Storage - again I'm not sure as I only know about Alicante Airport costs - where it is about €375-€400 pa

Owning a car is not cheap in Spain - if  you are only here for 1 or 2 months a year it might be worth talking to one of the car hire companies to see if you can get a deal for all your visits - that's what we used to do. We'd pre-book 6 weeks rental (to be fair we never came in peak period) and used to get about 40% discount.

Hi Mike and Helen

We replied to the previous thread on a PM( a long and complicated story) as we had a UK plated car at Roda last year which was due to come back this year until an accident in the UK has halted those plans. If a UK car then you can only to have it in Spain for 6 months before you need to re register( though some people don't seem to bother, we would not risk it) cost approx 1000-1200euros for a Ford Focus. We re insured to Spanish insurance as our UK insurance only covered us for 90days, this was a similar cost as the UK insurance and also automatically includes breakdown cover. Road Tax is added to your council tax for your property and paid annually about 100-120euros for our town hall(San Javier) but I think all town halls set different amounts. Storage for the year at the airport depending on supplier is approx 300euros. ITV is every 2 years for newer cars and annually for older - you take the car to the testing station and stay with it while they do the test.

If you buy a Spanish car they are significantly more expensive than a UK car. If second hand car you need to check there are no debts with it and that the old owner does all the paperwork correctly. I think all the costs mentioned above are similar. 

Hope that helps - this has been our research and if we got anything wrong please let us know as this may effect what we do for this year!!!

There are good deals to be had though on new cars.

When we sold our UK car we ended up buying the Astra brand new because, as Colney said, 2nd hand cars can be quite expensive. The one we bought was the showroom display model and they needed to get rid of it to make room for the newly released version. It's top of the range and we paid about 25% less than list price.

Other UK friends have recently got an even better deal on a brand new Dacia Duster - about 35% off.

All,

Thanks for the replies, just aftert the ball park figurs so usefull.

The cost of re-registring a UK car is excessive and for many would not be worth it.

The other bits insurance, etc add up to less than the car hire for our annual summer family trip so we're considering it.

Anybody operating a car sitting service on Roda? 

Mike/