# Moving to Mallorca - Car registration fees - Help!!



## charles4348 (Jan 5, 2013)

Hi, we are a family of 4 and have decided to leave London for Mallorca in 6 months time.

Although I am Spanish, never actually worked in Spain as I just came straight to the UK after Uni- been 15 years in London now.

We are keen to bring over our car. I've seen a few posts re car costs (VAT, registration tax?..) depending whether you are resident or not. Not sure whether the fact I am Spanish (my wife is Irish) will make things easier to obtain residency but I would appreciate any help re:

a) how can I obtain residency - I.e. we are not going to buy a house for at least 6 months as we need to look at the areas and the children are still 1&2 to enrol them on any school
B) car is not new (so no VAT payment) but do I need to pay registration tax or assume we will be granted residency and don't pay initially? 

Any input much appreciated
Thanks in advance 
Carlos


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

charles4348 said:


> Hi, we are a family of 4 and have decided to leave London for Mallorca in 6 months time.
> 
> Although I am Spanish, never actually worked in Spain as I just came straight to the UK after Uni- been 15 years in London now.
> 
> ...


:welcome:

I'm not sure about there being any diference in taxes on importing acrs for residents & non-residemts - I have no idea - but you would have to get the car matriculated onto Spanish plates either way

but - as a Spanish national you don't have to apply for residency - you're Spanish & that's all there is to it - you can just come & live in Spain again


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## charles4348 (Jan 5, 2013)

Thanks a log for the quick reply!!! Too many years outside Spain...
Our children have both passports - Irish and Spanish 
Do you know how my wife can get Spanish Spanish residency and/or Spanish passport?

Thanks again
Carlos


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

charles4348 said:


> Thanks a log for the quick reply!!! Too many years outside Spain...
> Our children have both passports - Irish and Spanish
> Do you know how my wife can get Spanish Spanish residency and/or Spanish passport?
> 
> ...


residency shouldn't be an issue - I think that even though she's married to you (as Spanish) she would still have to show income & healthcare provision, but I'm not sure - the rules have only been in place a few months & the local exranjería might not even know 

I don't think she can apply for citizenship or a passport for a year after moving here though - it's 10 years for most people but I think because she's married to a Spaniard it's just one


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Assuming that the car is RHD, do you really need one that says "Brit" all over it and is more likely to make you a target for thieves. Eventually, you will probably want to replace it and it will have little PX value here - far better to sell it in UK and start afresh here. 

OK so you're going to lose a bit by selling but offset that against the cost of rematriculaton, ITV, its lesser value here, etc., so if you're thinking of staying (wise move), I would have thought that a Spanish vehicle would have been a better bet anyway. Another option is PX it in UK for a Spanish plated LHD vehicle.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2013)

charles4348 said:


> Hi, we are a family of 4 and have decided to leave London for Mallorca in 6 months time.
> 
> Although I am Spanish, never actually worked in Spain as I just came straight to the UK after Uni- been 15 years in London now.
> 
> ...



Hi Carlos,

I moved over to Barcelona from the UK six months ago and brought my car.

Here's my two cents......

If you have a decent car and you trust it is in good condition and reliable then I would advise you to take it. 

There is no value here in the secondhand car market compared to the UK. So taking in to account the russian roulette scenario anybody faces in buying a secondhand car then I would advise you to think it through thoroughly and seek a few opinions on the matter.

Very long story short....... my car has no real value (would get about £500 in the UK for it but would cost me about €1700 to buy the equivalent here) but I know I can trust it. I had it for 3 years in the UK and it only has 85,000 miles on it so there is another ten years in the car. In 3 years I've only had to replace two bulbs at a cost of £20.

So rather than throw the dice over here in a notoriously dodgy secondhand car market I took mine and paid a very good car importer to import it for me. The process to import is extremely painful so it was worth every penny that I paid for a complete hassle free experience. 

I'm now sitting on a very nice and reliable car with Spanish plates. It's a mazda 323 and runs perfectly and will probably be still alive after I'm not. So in my case I think matriculation was the right thing to do. I paid no VAT or Government costs as part of the importation process. I just paid the fees as laid out to me from the very start so I knew exactly what it would cost me from the get-go. 

If you were coming here and planned to buy a new car the I'd recommend that all day long as the prices for new cars seem quite reasonable but the secondhand car market prices seem bizarre. Also I don't think people care for their cars here like in the UK so cars seem to be in poor condition in general.

Was that really a " long story short " ? Sorry about that.

So in short..... if you like and trust your car then import it. 

Cheers

Danny


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## Chica22 (Feb 26, 2010)

charles4348 said:


> Hi, we are a family of 4 and have decided to leave London for Mallorca in 6 months time.
> 
> Although I am Spanish, never actually worked in Spain as I just came straight to the UK after Uni- been 15 years in London now.
> 
> ...


Hi Carlos
I dont know anything about registering a car, however my husband and I relocated here 7 years ago, he is Spanish, and retained his Spanish passport, but lived in the UK for 40 years. 

He found it incredibly difficult to sort out anything in Spain without an ID card. In fact we purchased a new car a few weeks after we came out here, and it was far easier to register the new car in my name with a UK passport and an NIE Number than it was to put it into his name.

From memory it took quite a few weeks for him to obtain the compulsory Spanish ID card, and although, as you know beaucracy differs everywhere in Spain, where we live, the fact that he was a Spaniard without an ID card, made it far harder for him than for a UK passport holder!!!.

Obtaining residency for you will be straightforward,, it is just the initial time to obtain your ID which may cause problems for you, but not for your wife!!!


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## Madliz (Feb 4, 2011)

Can you not imagine entering a car park and having to take a ticket from from the wrong side of the car? I sometimes have trouble reaching the ticket even when it's on my side! Would you try overtaking with no visibility? You may love your car, but it just isn't practical to have a RHD car here!


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2013)

Madliz said:


> Can you not imagine entering a car park and having to take a ticket from from the wrong side of the car? I sometimes have trouble reaching the ticket even when it's on my side! Would you try overtaking with no visibility? You may love your car, but it just isn't practical to have a RHD car here!



It's a fair point. It doesn't really effect me as I don't come across tolls that often and when I do it usually means I'm travelling a distance so my better half is with me and handles it.

It's all solid white line where I am so overtaking isn't an issue and it's not an issue on dual carriageways or motorways. 

I haven't used many (any i think) car parks either. 

So I suppose it depends on where you are living and what you are using the car for. 

For me it doesn't even feel like a small price to pay. 

Maybe I'm starting to chill out eventually !


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## RichTUK (Oct 15, 2012)

Danny&Claire said:


> It's a fair point. It doesn't really effect me as I don't come across tolls that often and when I do it usually means I'm travelling a distance so my better half is with me and handles it.


But when your forced with heading into an underground car park, stopping halfway down the ramp to get you ticket and getting 5 or 6 cars (very common) beeping you cos your taking to long during the hours of 7am and 10pm you would so wish you changed your car.


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2013)

RichTUK said:


> But when your forced with heading into an underground car park, stopping halfway down the ramp to get you ticket and getting 5 or 6 cars (very common) beeping you cos your taking to long during the hours of 7am and 10pm you would so wish you changed your car.


No no no. Not at all. 

Anything I can do to the ire of the locals when it comes to driving I will gladly do. 

I'm faced with their inept driving daily so I'd casually stroll to any ticket I may need and smile up the beeps. 

Maybe it's just where I live but people will just stop in their car to talk to somebody and then drive off 3 minutes later without consideration for who is behind them so I'm just wanting to integrate as best I can.

It's kind of the same way I've stopped holding doors open for people as they never even nod and I end up feeling like it's my job. 

So I am trying to adopt a tunnel vision to life so I'm just like most of the locals.

It's great. I feel like I acting like a rude F*ucker but yet I blend in seamlessly.


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## charles4348 (Jan 5, 2013)

Thanks everyone for the replies

The car we've got here in the UK is LHD, we bought it last year with the view to move to Spain this year, so car parks are not an issue.

It's more to do with if we have to pay registration tax (14.74% per cent in our case), we might be better off buying a second hand one in Spain. Though I am fully aware second hand market in Spain is pretty bad compared with UK. So if we do not have to pay registration tax (for what I can see in the replies, I am spanish citizen so residency then its no an issue) then we will bring it over 

Thanks 
Carlos


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

We brought our car from the Uk 7 years ago, yes there are minor inconveniences like car park machines but on the whole it was worth it as it was only one year old at the time. It was difficult and expensive to get the plates changed to Spanish ones. We had to go to a specially accredited 'engineer' to get what's called a ficha technica, which is the document with the tecnical specs of the car in Spanish. They even measured the car and took all the details even though they were already on the documents we had from the UK. Then you need something called a permiso de conducir, an ITV inspection, like the UK MOT , then pay the road tax to the town hall where you live, and then sort out the insurance once you have all these documents. The total cost 7 years ago was over 1000 euros. We did it ourselves and it was a lot of hassle. You can keep a car here and drive on Uk insurance for a few months, my advice would be to go to see a gestor when you arrive, they know the order you have to do things and where to get all the necessary bits of paper or can even do most of it for you. They really don't charge a lot and it would be worth every penny to smooth the way, I would pay rather than do it all myself if I had to do it again- hope not! By the way you don't have to change your driving licence to a Spanish one if you don't want to, but there are interesting discussions elsewhere on the forum as to the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.


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## Guest (Jan 12, 2013)

JaneyO said:


> We brought our car from the Uk 7 years ago, yes there are minor inconveniences like car park machines but on the whole it was worth it as it was only one year old at the time. It was difficult and expensive to get the plates changed to Spanish ones. We had to go to a specially accredited 'engineer' to get what's called a ficha technica, which is the document with the tecnical specs of the car in Spanish. They even measured the car and took all the details even though they were already on the documents we had from the UK. Then you need something called a permiso de conducir, an ITV inspection, like the UK MOT , then pay the road tax to the town hall where you live, and then sort out the insurance once you have all these documents. The total cost 7 years ago was over 1000 euros. We did it ourselves and it was a lot of hassle. You can keep a car here and drive on Uk insurance for a few months, my advice would be to go to see a gestor when you arrive, they know the order you have to do things and where to get all the necessary bits of paper or can even do most of it for you. They really don't charge a lot and it would be worth every penny to smooth the way, I would pay rather than do it all myself if I had to do it again- hope not! By the way you don't have to change your driving licence to a Spanish one if you don't want to, but there are interesting discussions elsewhere on the forum as to the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.


I was fortunate enough to eventually find an importation expert who did EVERYTHING (including helping me get my NIE) for a very reasonable fee. 

He outlined ALL costs before taking my car and when he gave it back to me EVERYTHING (headlight conversion,ficha tecnica, itv admin fee, itv test fee, road tax, trafico admin and new number plates) was done. 

All I had to do was insure it. He even helped with that and I got a quote that was €80 cheaper than all others. 

The guy was a godsend and a total professional. 

Worth every penny is cost me and I think you'd have to be slightly mental to attempt it as a newcomer.

Danny


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Danny&Claire said:


> Maybe it's just where I live but people will just stop in their car to talk to somebody and then drive off 3 minutes later without consideration for who is behind them so I'm just wanting to integrate as best I can.
> 
> .



No, it's the same in our village.

There seems to be some sort of tacit, unwritten law or code. If the driver in front of you sees someone they know on the street they MUST be allowed to stop and chat. It's extremely rude to beep immediately.
But there seems to be a locally-agreed time limit for this practice. Chatting for longer than two to three minutes is not on and it's perfectly acceptable to beep and show good-natured signs of impatience.

Failure to stop and speak to a friend or acquaintance seems to be a social faux-pas equal to exposing yourself in church. In a car or on a bike or moped, with or without a dog, horse, goat or goats, donkey or donkeys, you must, it seems, stop and exchange pleasantries.

I rather like it.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> No, it's the same in our village.
> 
> There seems to be some sort of tacit, unwritten law or code. If the driver in front of you sees someone they know on the street they MUST be allowed to stop and chat. It's extremely rude to beep immediately.
> But there seems to be a locally-agreed time limit for this practice. Chatting for longer than two to three minutes is not on and it's perfectly acceptable to beep and show good-natured signs of impatience.
> ...


So do I. SWMBO used to take the p*ss out of me when we first arrived and I waved to everybody we met when going along in the car whether I knew them or not. She now agrees that the benefits of my bonhomie are the numbers of people who welcome us in the village (almost "friends").


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