Brexit driving licence woes

[wittyusermane]

We are currently living in Germany and reaching the end of a year-long temporary work placement with my husband's job. We move back to the UK mid April.

We've been driving on our UK licences and decided on arrival here that it wasn't worth exchanging them for German ones for a year and the risk of a no deal Brexit seemed negligible.

So, technically we won't be able to legally drive here for our last two weeks in the country, if worst comes to the worst.

Been googling and it looks like the only way around it is to fly back to the UK to visit a post office for an IDP, but that's a very expensive solution for the sake of a fortnights worth of driving.

It's too late now to swap for a German licence in time, so we can only cross our fingers and hope for the best. It might be that the Germans introduce a grace period or some other leeway in the event that we crash out on the 29th but it might be that we are stuck.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

I realise we have no one else to blame but ourselves btw! We gambled on everything working out and it not being an issue but here we are 🙄

You only technically won't be able to drive there in April if the UK leaves the EU with no deal on 29 March. Realistically, there's likely to be an extension of the deadline until 30 June, so you'll be fine. I'd wait and see - nothing is clear or certain yet....

HI OP, in a similar situation - working in Germany, the British consulate came into our office a couple of weeks ago and did a v good q and a, might be worth getting in touch with them?

Yes, perhaps there will be an extension which would solve our licence issues, we shall see 😬

Might get in touch will the British Consulate @Userplusnumbers, that's a good idea. Will wait and see if an extension gets granted and go from there!

I know that the UK are still recognising EU licences regardless of Brexit outcome; maybe EU countries might take a similar approach! I suspect the Post Office are making a pretty penny selling IDPs in the meantime...

I haven't changed my UK one for a Belgian one as Belgium are fine as long as it is an EU licence! Advice is to change it, but then we are moving back in October, and trying to reimport the car, plus changing my licence would be a nightmare.

Hopefully things will become clearer soon! It's so tricky when you are already in the EU but not staying permanently! If we exchanged our licences they'd probably not be sorted before we left the country anyway at this stage!

Could do without the time and expense of a trip back to the UK just to get an international driving permit!

I've been here 13 years!

Sod's law @scaryteacher!!!!

You never know, at this rate we might still be in the EU come October 😆🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

God forbid!