Buying a Second-Hand Car in France
You may remember the difficulties we encountered when trying to fathom out how to register our British car in France (go on then, remind yourself- it's way back in the blog on 18th February 2016). The process involved, initially, obtaining an inexplicably expensive Certificate of Conformity from Mitsubishi, and this is something I did actually manage to achieve. It cost £120. There were then further obstacles to navigate, including filling in a veritable paper mountain of forms for several different government departments, followed by paying out to have our headlights changed, obtaining a new MOT, paying for new registration plates, and other procedures which remain obscured by the mauve mists of Franglais.
The Certificate of Conformity was as far as we got, because we began to construct a cunning plan... A plan that would sidestep all of the bureaucracy and expense. We shall simply sell our British vehicles in England and buy a second-hand French car in France! Because that would merely involve handing over the cost of the car, then sending off the log book to the DVLA equivalent! Easy!
Well, that was what we thought...
The cunning plan seemed to be unfurling itself smoothly at first, as we were lucky enough to have British friends who had been living in France for several years, and who were about to move on to Spain, and wanted to sell their French car! And their trailer. How convenient!
We filled out the Declaration de Cession d'un Vehicle form No.13754*01 in triplicate, one for the vendor, one for the buyer and one for the Prefecture. Twice. For both the car and the trailer. This took a while. The form contains details of the vendor, the buyer and the vehicle. In detail. It is also signed by both parties. I had the log books in my possession, which are known as the Certificats d'Immatriculation, and, on the reverse of that document for the car, I had the MOT stamp, or Controle Technique, showing that it was valid until May 2017. Armed with these precious documents, along with my passport, recent utility bill and my cheque book, we went to the Prefecture*.
On entering, you have to declare your intention from a list on an electronic screen, and take a ticket, one for each 'job' you wish to complete. We went for 'Carte Grise' and sat down to wait with our little 09 ticket. I noticed a sign, in French (obviously), stating that it is obligatory to complete a Demande de Certificat d'Immatriculation d'un Vehicle form No. 13750*05 for every 'dosier'. What? Panicking just a little, I swiped up two of these from the counter just as 09 was called. We went to the little window.
The Prefecture lady was very kind and marked little red crosses on both of my snatched blank forms to show me where I had to write. She also told me that when I had finished filling them in, I should go and take two tickets from the special machine, as I had two dosiers. One, two. Then sit and wait. I filled out the forms where she had indicated. The forms wanted all of the information from my original form; the only additional information I had to supply was my date of birth. Okay. We then went to the machine and were issued with 015 and 016. We sat and waited. 014 appeared to be making the lady cross- no! we don't want her rattled! At this point, Kevin saw fit to blow on my face in order to curtail my over-sweating.
015 was called and we headed for the window again. The lady looked at the forms for some time. She wanted to know my first name. I told her 'Deborah' and pointed to it on the form. No, she wanted my maiden name it emerged, after a long conversation about when I married Kevin. Okay, no sweat. (Not true- I was still sweating...) But the form didn't ask for that. She started to tap away at her computer and I felt that we were nearly there... That was for the trailer- she wanted to do that one first.
'Do you also have 016?' she asked. Yes, she knew that. Again, she perused the forms, then she uttered a slow low sound of sorrow; it emanated out from her little window, causing the seated crowds to look up. The crowds who were already being subjected to the uncomfortable sounds of my French. What could be wrong?
'The Controle Technique is not valid,' she told me. I tried to explain politely that it was not yet 2017. She was patient. Eventually I understood what she was telling me. When a car is sold, the CT must be less than six months old. As CTs are carried out every two years in France, this one had been carried out in May 2015. 'That's more than six months ago', she explained. Yes, thank you, but where, on any form, or any website, did it mention this? Of course, I didn't say this, I simply asked what I had to do next. She had previously told me that I would have to go and wait to be called to the next window to pay** for registering the trailer, so I asked if I should now do that. No. I actually must just leave the building and get a CT for the car and try again another day. But we're not yet in possession of the car. Shrug.
We went for a coffee, to give ourselves time to discombobulate. Or recombobulate; one or the other. Bless our British friends, once we phoned them with our bad news, they 'saw no problem' and they promptly booked in the car for a CT the next day. That day is tomorrow. The day before we return to Britain for five weeks. That means that we must return to the Prefecture on Thursday morning. It's not open in the afternoon. This has to go well, as it is forbidden to wait more than a month before registering your newly purchased vehicle. There is a hefty fine for those who disobey.
I'll let you know how it goes...
* Last year, I began to see Kevin and myself as the little old couple in When the Wind Blows, naively doing our best in a situation that is out of our control. Today, on approaching the Prefecture in Tulle, we saw that the street was closed to traffic. We thought it would be easy to park in the town and walk back up. Unfortunately, there is a musical event on this evening in Tulle, so many of the usual parking areas were roped off. We drove around for a while, eventually spying a diversion to the Prefecture! Perfect! We seemed to be driving quite a long way, so we saw a space and parked. That's when we lost our senses. We continued to follow the diversion signs on foot, up and up, for ages, maybe half an hour, under a blazing sun, eventually coming back down to the Prefecture. On leaving the Prefecture, and after coffee, we realised that we were parked only a five minute walk away, up some steps.
** Yes! You have to pay the government when you buy a used car! It is calculated using a formula based on the CV and the perceived emissions of your vehicle. The trailer has no CV nor emissions, so I'm hoping that's cheap, but the car... There's a sliding scale for Limousin that starts at 42 Euros and goes up to 980 Euros. I think we'll be around 280 Euros. Part of me is already thinking that it may well have been cheaper to have converted the British car...
The Certificate of Conformity was as far as we got, because we began to construct a cunning plan... A plan that would sidestep all of the bureaucracy and expense. We shall simply sell our British vehicles in England and buy a second-hand French car in France! Because that would merely involve handing over the cost of the car, then sending off the log book to the DVLA equivalent! Easy!
Well, that was what we thought...
The cunning plan seemed to be unfurling itself smoothly at first, as we were lucky enough to have British friends who had been living in France for several years, and who were about to move on to Spain, and wanted to sell their French car! And their trailer. How convenient!
We filled out the Declaration de Cession d'un Vehicle form No.13754*01 in triplicate, one for the vendor, one for the buyer and one for the Prefecture. Twice. For both the car and the trailer. This took a while. The form contains details of the vendor, the buyer and the vehicle. In detail. It is also signed by both parties. I had the log books in my possession, which are known as the Certificats d'Immatriculation, and, on the reverse of that document for the car, I had the MOT stamp, or Controle Technique, showing that it was valid until May 2017. Armed with these precious documents, along with my passport, recent utility bill and my cheque book, we went to the Prefecture*.
On entering, you have to declare your intention from a list on an electronic screen, and take a ticket, one for each 'job' you wish to complete. We went for 'Carte Grise' and sat down to wait with our little 09 ticket. I noticed a sign, in French (obviously), stating that it is obligatory to complete a Demande de Certificat d'Immatriculation d'un Vehicle form No. 13750*05 for every 'dosier'. What? Panicking just a little, I swiped up two of these from the counter just as 09 was called. We went to the little window.
The Prefecture lady was very kind and marked little red crosses on both of my snatched blank forms to show me where I had to write. She also told me that when I had finished filling them in, I should go and take two tickets from the special machine, as I had two dosiers. One, two. Then sit and wait. I filled out the forms where she had indicated. The forms wanted all of the information from my original form; the only additional information I had to supply was my date of birth. Okay. We then went to the machine and were issued with 015 and 016. We sat and waited. 014 appeared to be making the lady cross- no! we don't want her rattled! At this point, Kevin saw fit to blow on my face in order to curtail my over-sweating.
015 was called and we headed for the window again. The lady looked at the forms for some time. She wanted to know my first name. I told her 'Deborah' and pointed to it on the form. No, she wanted my maiden name it emerged, after a long conversation about when I married Kevin. Okay, no sweat. (Not true- I was still sweating...) But the form didn't ask for that. She started to tap away at her computer and I felt that we were nearly there... That was for the trailer- she wanted to do that one first.
'Do you also have 016?' she asked. Yes, she knew that. Again, she perused the forms, then she uttered a slow low sound of sorrow; it emanated out from her little window, causing the seated crowds to look up. The crowds who were already being subjected to the uncomfortable sounds of my French. What could be wrong?
'The Controle Technique is not valid,' she told me. I tried to explain politely that it was not yet 2017. She was patient. Eventually I understood what she was telling me. When a car is sold, the CT must be less than six months old. As CTs are carried out every two years in France, this one had been carried out in May 2015. 'That's more than six months ago', she explained. Yes, thank you, but where, on any form, or any website, did it mention this? Of course, I didn't say this, I simply asked what I had to do next. She had previously told me that I would have to go and wait to be called to the next window to pay** for registering the trailer, so I asked if I should now do that. No. I actually must just leave the building and get a CT for the car and try again another day. But we're not yet in possession of the car. Shrug.
We went for a coffee, to give ourselves time to discombobulate. Or recombobulate; one or the other. Bless our British friends, once we phoned them with our bad news, they 'saw no problem' and they promptly booked in the car for a CT the next day. That day is tomorrow. The day before we return to Britain for five weeks. That means that we must return to the Prefecture on Thursday morning. It's not open in the afternoon. This has to go well, as it is forbidden to wait more than a month before registering your newly purchased vehicle. There is a hefty fine for those who disobey.
I'll let you know how it goes...
* Last year, I began to see Kevin and myself as the little old couple in When the Wind Blows, naively doing our best in a situation that is out of our control. Today, on approaching the Prefecture in Tulle, we saw that the street was closed to traffic. We thought it would be easy to park in the town and walk back up. Unfortunately, there is a musical event on this evening in Tulle, so many of the usual parking areas were roped off. We drove around for a while, eventually spying a diversion to the Prefecture! Perfect! We seemed to be driving quite a long way, so we saw a space and parked. That's when we lost our senses. We continued to follow the diversion signs on foot, up and up, for ages, maybe half an hour, under a blazing sun, eventually coming back down to the Prefecture. On leaving the Prefecture, and after coffee, we realised that we were parked only a five minute walk away, up some steps.
** Yes! You have to pay the government when you buy a used car! It is calculated using a formula based on the CV and the perceived emissions of your vehicle. The trailer has no CV nor emissions, so I'm hoping that's cheap, but the car... There's a sliding scale for Limousin that starts at 42 Euros and goes up to 980 Euros. I think we'll be around 280 Euros. Part of me is already thinking that it may well have been cheaper to have converted the British car...
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