# Driving with foreign car's plate



## Selassie (Aug 8, 2015)

Hi for some reason i want to drive my foreign car in greece without registering the car with greek plates. The car is registered in eu country and im eu citizen, i plan to settle in greece but i dont need a job or whatsoever as i have foreign revenues,and i already hold a resident visa in a middle east country i dont wanna drop. im just a ... Forever Tourist then in greece.

Let say i take the ferry from the island i plan to settle to mainland, even pass greek borders if needed every 6 months.

I come back the next day by ferry, will this be enough to go around police control in case and avoid overstay fines or inpoundments ?

The car will have all dox from my country of origin, tests, insurance etc...

I could of course avoid all this mess if i could find my car here in greece for a reasonnable price... Which is by far not the case...

Thanks for sharing your experience


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## Brisargr (May 10, 2014)

Hi Selassie

What you suggest is illegal under Greek law. 

You say that you will leave Greece every 6 months, will you also return to the country where the car is registered and renew tax, insuranceand MOT? If not the car is once again illegal.

Please also note that Greek police are now conected tothe UK DVLC and the German version, with France and Italy coming soon. This will enable them tocheck validity on the spot.

Many get away with it, but those days are firmly coming to an end.


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## Selassie (Aug 8, 2015)

Hi brisar, thanks for your answer, yest i know thats perfectly illegal but thats not my question, my question is if everything is in order with the car document including the car test and i have proof with me that the car took the ferry in the last 6 months is that enough to get away with the rules or not. I dont get your point with the system connected to other country, if the car is legit whats the problem, im just visiting often thats it...


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## Brisargr (May 10, 2014)

My points are:

Once a vehicle has beenin Greece for 6 months it must then be out ofthe country for a minimum of 6 months. You cant just go overthe border and come in a different crossing.

To be legit you would have to take it back to country of registration and have it MOTd and taxed. Without both any insurance you may have would be invalid. Indeed, unless you have informed your insurer you are taking the vehicle out of the registered country for extended periods you may well find your insurance would be recinded inthe case of an accident.

It is these factors that are becoming ever more difficult to avoid as the police become more tech savvy and the fines are quite large.

Its about time too as I see many vehicles (mostly English, French and German) that are here in Greece illegally just trying to not pay their just dues.


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## Brisargr (May 10, 2014)

To get full gen see http://www.norway.gr/Global/SiteFol...portation_-_Use_of_private_passenger_cars.pdf


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## Selassie (Aug 8, 2015)

I know the law thanks i dont need a lecture. The fact that you want to respect the law is up to you... Btw you always park correctly ? We all have rules to follow and they are all different iregarding the country you live. In middle east you would be jailed 21 days for insulting someone. I you insult him in front of the police in arabic your chance to get away is zero, if you insult him behind his back in your own langage in a noisy street the chance you get away is 99%. Our perception of how we can play with the rules are all personal and at 50 yo i dont need anybody to tell me how to behave. If i want to drive my car illegally as i said thats my problem not yours and unless you are a monk i doubt your life was exempt or irregularities.

Therefore i think you are not reading what i wrote initially. My car is all legit in my country and will be and i have no intention to sell it and i cannot buy it here as it is a very special car. My question is all simple, how can the police detect im here with the car more than 6 month if i take the ferry every 6 months and renew my insurance and test.

If you dont know then no need to write again that is is illegal... Btw i bet in my life i paid thousand more time more my duties that you would ever do. I just simply cannot buy this car here in greece so i have to take my chance, i'm not trying so save the tax on a (moderated) citroen picasso here.


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## Brisargr (May 10, 2014)

If you already know the law then you don't need any advise. 

BTW under Greek law you have to prove evrything the police do not. If they you entered for a certain time the law requires you to prove otherwise. Border crossings (ferries and by land) have CCTV and you would not be the first caught. The last I am aware of got find 6000 euros andhis car was confiscated.

But then you already know everthing so Iam probably wasting my time.


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## OldPro (Feb 18, 2015)

Let me start Selassie by saying that I drove a UK registered car on a Greek island for 3.5 years without once leaving the island with the car. Second, it was a red 1980 MGB convertible and so hardly inconspicuous on a small island.

At the same time, let me say that Brisargr is correct to tell you that legally, you are at risk. That means that his advice to not try it is in fact the smart advice, whether it is what you want to hear or not.

This is Greece we are talking about. In Greece there is the law and there is how things are done. On an island the latter even more so than on the mainland, is what matters. I drove for 3.5 years with the local police and Customs being well aware that I was doing so. They simply chose to ignore the law.

However, that is not the case for everyone. During my 7 years on that island I saw quite a few expats who had their car confiscated and sold at auction because they broke the 6 month regulation. So the question is why some and not others and which group are you more likely to be included in?

I knew people, it's as simple as that. In Greece, your 'face' is all important. Unless you are accorded 'face' by association (as I was), you will not be exempt if caught. The more conspicuous the car the more likely that is. If you drive it enough, you will be noticed, that's inevitable don't you think.

Nor will leaving and returning every 6 months save you even if it is somehow arguably legal if you do so. Again, this is Greece we are talking about. If they want to take your car, they will take it. You can hire a lawyer, argue all you want and in the meantime the car will have been sold at auction for a fraction of its value to some cousin of the local Customs official.

Nor if it is confiscated can you count on being able to say, 'OK, you got me, I'll pay to register it in Greece and a fine for being over the 6 months. The paperwork will get lost, delayed and voila, the car has been sold at auction to a cousin yet again.

So, how lucky do you feel and how much are you willing to gamble becomes the question. It is not just a question of risking it legally. It is a question of giving them an excuse to seize it.

My advice even though I got away with it would be to not try it. Not unless you have some very well placed 'protector' on your island or are willing to lose the car.


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## crunchy frog (Aug 18, 2015)

OldPro said:


> Let me start Selassie by saying that I drove a UK registered car on a Greek island for 3.5 years without once leaving the island with the car. Second, it was a red 1980 MGB convertible and so hardly inconspicuous on a small island.
> 
> At the same time, let me say that Brisargr is correct to tell you that legally, you are at risk. That means that his advice to not try it is in fact the smart advice, whether it is what you want to hear or not.
> 
> ...


I understand that the person with the car problem is from Kuwait, a country renowned for having a population with the third highest earning per capita in the world and so therefore,my first question would be 

Why cannot you afford the taxes charged by the Greek authorities to import an old car permanently into greece, and secondly.

Why not do what we are currently in the process of doing, i.e. buying a second car in your country of origin, (we are fortunate in already having a second car, albeit a cheap one) and bringing car 'a' into greece for 6 months and then returning home and exchanging cars for car 'b' for a further 6 months and carry on on a rotating basis.

This is, I believe, legal and would solve your problem. I would be grateful if anyone could tell me if there is a loophole in my plan!


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## Selassie (Aug 8, 2015)

crunchy frog said:


> I understand that the person with the car problem is from Kuwait, a country renowned for having a population with the third highest earning per capita in the world and so therefore,my first question would be
> 
> Why cannot you afford the taxes charged by the Greek authorities to import an old car permanently into greece, and secondly.
> 
> ...


Thats not the problem of affording the tax, i just cannot simply import the car. I left my euro country 25 years ago, i bought a luxury car to my dad 3 years ago, he passed away 2 months ago. Car is registered under his name but i will inherit the car now. To import the car i need to own it from my country of origin for more than 6 months, i need a loads of documents i dont have like utilities bill and such. Importing the car in any other way would be ridiculous as the car is quite expensive and tax would be enormous. 

I already have a class G55 in middle east i will give up for the same reasons 

Was just trying to find out if i could just keep this car and drive it back to mainland every 6 months to keep it more simple for me than going through headache of importing. 

Btw you may refer to koweitis for the earnings, i guess abu dhabi or doha might be close and if u are not local you are probably not counted in those statistics. Plus you dont declare any revenue as there are no taxes of any kind so there are no tracks at all of any income... How they find out these stats i have no clue 
Sel


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## OldPro (Feb 18, 2015)

Selassie, why not sell the car and buy another in Greece?

Crunchy, your plan assumes that someone returns to their country of origin every 6 months. Why not buy a second car in Greece and not have to switch them every 6 months? I don't see the advantage of your plan. Also, are your two cars right hand drive? Both will be 'wrong' when in Greece from that aspect.

I don't see a 'loophole' in your plan but I do see it as somewhat impractical. You have the cost of driving to/from the UK every 6 months to consider. If you plan to visit that often anyway, it is still much cheaper to fly than to drive. Why keep a car in the UK at all? Are you planning on spending 6 months in the UK every year? You have to MOT, insure, maintain, etc. TWO cars in the UK just for that. Unless you can clarify why what you are planning makes more sense, I don't see it as a good solution. The simple solution is to buy a car in Greece.

I would also say that if you drive 2 cars for alternating 6 month periods in the same area of Greece, sooner or later, someone will notice what you are doing or someone will decide to 'shop you' to the authorities. You may then discover what I was trying to explain to Selassie. It doesn't matter what the law says, you are in GREECE and if they decide to impound your car, you can kiss it goodbye, legal or not.


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## OldPro (Feb 18, 2015)

I now see on another thread that you are not resident in Greece Crunchy, only visiting for vacations. That makes a bit more sense of your plan although I still don't see it as really practical unless you are visiting for fairly long periods of time, each time.


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## crunchy frog (Aug 18, 2015)

While I agree in a lot of what you say, let me try and explain my reasoning.

Firstly, we already own and maintain two cars in the uk, neither of which is worth more than £2000 but as they are each around 15 years old and very reliable we are willing to drive them until they drop.

Secondly, it gives us an excuse to take a four day trip through Europe which we have costed out at around £450 plus hotel costs each way (subtracting £200 saved by not flying) with the bonus, of course, of saving the cost of hiring a car during our stays.

Thirdly, we are not discounting buying a cheap car during our trips to and from our little gites (what is the greek term for a small country house?)


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## crunchy frog (Aug 18, 2015)

Thank you for your input, only another post or two and maybe I will be able to access the classifieds and find a cheap second hand car in Greece!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

crunchy frog said:


> Thank you for your input, only another post or two and maybe I will be able to access the classifieds and find a cheap second hand car in Greece!


:confused2: all members can see the Classifieds - it has nothing to do with the number of posts you have made


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## OldPro (Feb 18, 2015)

Well, xeochico (prounounced X-oh-he-caw) is one Greek word for a vacation home or another is spiti diakopon. Gite is a french equivalent, hogar de vacaciones is a Spanish equivalent and cottage is an English equivalent. 

Cottage in Canada definitely refers to a vacation home in the countryside and never to a permanent home. Yet in England, cottage does not necessarily refer to a vacation home at all. It has a quite different meaning.

Many expats/immigrants refer to their 'villa' in Spain for example which means a large and luxurious country residence. A house is simply a casa in Spanish and in Greece it is a spiti. 

A 'small country house' as you describe it could be a mikro exochico spiti translated into Greek. Exochico alone translates as cottage in English. So you could say a small cottage house or you could just say cottage (exochico).

All of this just points out that translating and interpreting are two different things. Tanslation is literal while interpreting is about the meaning of a word and normal accepted usage. That's why translation programs can't give you results that are hard to understand what was really meant.

Have you ever bought something where the instructions have been translated from say Japanese into English and when you read the instructions you can't understand half of what they are saying? That's translation, not interpretation at work.

It's always best to use the simplest word when you are learning a new language. That way, you don't end up sounding like a foreigner calling his little house a country mansion. ie. the common misuse of the word villa in Spanish being a prime example. These are not 'villas': 2 bedroom semi-detached villa for sale in Valencia, Alicante, Cabo Roig, Spain

Stick to 'spiti' and you can't go wrong.


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## crunchy frog (Aug 18, 2015)

Thanks for the Greek lesson, one word a day. siga - siga


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## OldPro (Feb 18, 2015)

Yes, siga, siga.

Here's a good expression to learn. It is to be said while looking upwards, lifting your hands palm up and open and shrugging your shoulders. (If you're gonna learn Greek you gotta learn to talk with your body more)

'Tea-nah - ka-nah - may.' It translates as 'what can I say' but is properly interpreted to mean, 'what can I say, it's in the hands of the gods'. 

It is a phrase you can get a lot of laughs from your Greek friends for if you apply it at an appropriate moment.


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