Car from Spain to UK and Return

 Please may I ask this question?

I am a non-resident of Spain. I own a Spanish registered car for use on my many trips when over. The Car is ITV’ed, Insured Fully Comprehensive with green card and the Local Motor tax paid to the Local Town Hall. So all legal in my eyes.

The question is

Can I drive my Spanish registered car back to the UK. Then back to Spain legally.

Do all the above cover the legal side of things when travelling through the countries en route.

My UK Car is Mot’d Taxed and insured Fully Comp. (Green card could be applied for). I am sure that I would have no problem if I did the same Trip in My UK car.

Advice Please.

Don't know if true, think I saw it in RTN,  but if you have a UK driving licence, you can't drive a car registered to you in Spain, in England.

You might well have a problem as Camposol points out , although the UK doesn't actually have a law stating that UK residents cannot drive a foreign car , like Spain does.

Just because you have a 'green card' attached to the bottom of your policy doesn't mean that that is actually the Green card. With both my insurance companies, Liberty Seguros & Generali t,hey both have that but when I asked was that all I needed the answer was no & the  agent then proceeded to print out a complete A4 green card dated & stamped by them . I get a new one every time I renew the policy & it covers the whole year. There is no charge.

Secondly if you do take it to the UK & are going inside the London Emissions Zone ( LEZ) which is anything inside the M25 , then you need to register the vehicle with Transport For London ( TFL) , otherwise it will come up on the system & you will receive a warning 1st time . The letter will be sent to your spanish address. Yes , they have access. Fine is £1500 +£200/day

I tried to get an answer on this from the DVLA but having asked for a straight yes or no response to a simple question four times finally gave up. I believe that as a UK resident you are not allowed to drive a Foreign registered vehicle in the UK but would like to be proved wrong. I did think of asking my 84 year old Renault 4 driving Spanish neighbour if he would like a trip to the UK and drive my car over here, as he has never been out of Spain and therefore never driven on the left hand side of the road, imagine the chaos he could have caused on the M2, M25, M1 and M6 on the trip North !!!

I do not know if this is correct but I have always understood that a UK resident can drive a foreign plated car in the U.K. but should not own it.  If one has just imported the car then a very brief period is allowed whilst you change the registration. As far as just driving a Spanish plated car in U.K. so long as you have the correct documents and insurance the U.K. police should not be bothered as they can see that the car will be returned to Spain in the near future. (Carry the return ticket with you at all times)  As far as driving in France there is no problem so long as you have all the docs etc. Don't forget your breathalisers for France.

If DVLA will not answer your question try asking the AA/RAC or even the ferry operaters.

Good luck

 Spiderman

Sorry, I can't prove you wrong

From the gov.uk website, the page is about importing a vehicle but the message below is clear

www.gov.uk/importing-vehicles-into-the-uk/overview

Driving with a foreign registration number

UK residents aren’t allowed to use non-UK registered vehicles on UK roads. The only exceptions are if you:

• work in another European Union (EU) member state and use an EU-registered company car temporarily in the UK
• lease an EU-registered car and use this temporarily in the UK

It is right that if you are permanent residential person of UK then you should have legal registered car or vehicle to drive on Uk's road.