Car insurance: Resident (mostly) in France, car registered in UK

[LakieLady]

My friend is officially resident in France, but spends approx 70% of her time in the UK. She has a RH drive car, that is registered in the UK. She has fully comp insurance that covers her while she is driving in the UK

She's had a letter from DVLA about the car not being insured here. Her French insurance doesn't cut it, according to someone at DVLA that she spoke to yesterday. They say that because it's registered here, she has to have UK insurance if she wants to drive it here.

She doesn't want to register her car in France, partly because it's a hassle and partly because if/when she wants to sell it, she wouldn't get as much for it here if it was French registered, and it wouldn't be worth as much in France because it's RH drive. Also, she's undecided on whether she wants to live in France permanently.

The alternative is to take out UK insurance and run two policies, but when she looked into it, the insurers want the driver to be resident in the UK, which she isn't.

I wondered if anyone had come across this, and how they had resolved it.

How long has your friend been in France? Is she military? We debated bringing our UK car over, but decided it was too much hassle. We were under the impression that we only had a year to to swap the UK plates over for French ones, which was a very complex process, so we bought a French registered car. The only UK registered cars I see around our way belong to UK military families, who I presume have special arrangements.

She can't resolve it because she is breaking the rules. If she spends 70% of her time in the UK then she is legally resident in the UK and should be paying tax, NI and everything else accordingly. If she is officially resident in France then the car should be registered and insured in France.

She is trying to pick and choose. If she has an accident then she could find herself uninsured. Her driving licence should also be French but I'm guessing it's not.

You can live like this for some time but at some point it will bite her in the bum.

@Frenchfancy
my Dad is the same and ignores the rules, he lives in France 90% of the time but the car is registered and insured in the UK. I’ve given up telling him that he needs to get it registered and insured in France.

Sorry, I was trying (and failing) to multi-task, she spends 70% of her time in France, not UK. She has legal residence in France and pays tax there. She's rented out her home in the UK.

She has a UK licence, and French insurance, which covers her to drive her UK registered car in the UK.

Is this a post-Brexit issue? I have some other French-resident friends, and they kept their UK registered car for years, but insured it in France.

The other thing that's a bit bizarre is that she pays her VED in the UK by standing order, and her car is shown as taxed on the DVLA database, but I was under the impression that you couldn't tax an uninsured car. You certainly couldn't in the old days, when you had to rock up at the post office with your MOT and insurance certificate and pay for your tax disc!

She's been there for around 18 months, maybe a bit longer. But she's returned to the UK several times, for a few weeks at a time.

And definitely not in the military!

They've tightened up post Brexit. If resident in France then the car should be registered in France and she should have a French driving licence.

As a resident in France you can only drive for up to one year on a UK driving licence. It must then be exchanged for a French one or it will be invalid. Therefore her French insurance probably isn’t going to help her much if she has accident anyway. Once she exchanges her licence she will struggle to get UK insurance as very few insurers will cover people without a UK licence. We also have foreign licences and, despite passing our tests in the UK, we’re unable to be added to family insurance when we visit.

It may feel like a hassle to register the car in France but the way she is currently handling it could cause a lot more hassle if she were to have an accident.

Not quite true. If your UK licence was issued before 31st December ‘20, when the new Brexit WA came into place, then you can carry on using UK licence until it expires, and then exchange it for a French one. If your licence was issued after Dec ‘20, then you only have a year to drive on it, and then must exchange for a French one. I exchanged mine for a French one immediately, as I had less than a year left to run.

The OP’s friend is most definitely on dodgy ground in both countries. Her UK reg car needs to be re registered in France, but tbh I’d just sell it and get a French registered car. She’ll be covered to drive it on trips home to UK with her French insurance.

You can't have your foot in both camps after Brexit. She's a French resident so she needs a French registered car. And when her licence needs renewing she needs a French one.

Presumably she's already jumped through the hoops to get her carte de sejour so it seems bonkers that she's fixated on keeping a RH drive car for just the 30% of the time she's in the UK.

Insurance isn't expensive here (but use a broker for the best deal) and we only need an MOT (controle technique) every two years.

Is this a post-Brexit issue? I have some other French-resident friends, and they kept their UK registered car for years, but insured it in France.

No it isn't a post-Brexit issue. Even before the Brexit vote, the law was that cars should be registered and insured in the country where they are usually kept.

Military and diplomats aside, a car which is mostly kept in France should be registered and insured in France.

A UK registered car should have a MIB registered insurance when driven on UK roads and French insurance policies don't appear on the MIB database (MID) . The UK authorities therefore consider her to be driving without valid insurance and apply penalties accordingly.

Her French insurance could still pay claims for accidents occurring in the UK if there is no breach of contract. This does not change the fact that the UK consider her to be uninsured.

It is likely the small print of her French contract says she has a certain amount of time to complete the reregistration process.

I'm very surprised her French insurance company have allowed her to continue driving a UK registered car. I remember when I moved to France 20 years ago my car was UK registered, I think they gave me 6 months before I had to change it to French registration. Your friend could change her car onto the French system and in fact, I've seen a few handholder companies here in Brittany who advertise help with this service. I imagine one of the reasons she's put it off is the cost of changing the head lights on her car so they don't blind everyone when she's driving. Or she could sell her car back in the UK and buy a car in France.