My home town in north Essex like many others has had an influx of Polish residents many of whom brought their cars over with them.
I'm curious to know if their cars need to be re-registered on UK plates after a certain period of time?
Would the vehicle need to be MOT'd to UK standard and if so when would a new MOT fall due?
Could a Polish car on Polish plates get a road fund licence in the UK?
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Temporarily brought in.
www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVeh...3
Permanent Import
www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVeh...3
Once outside the scope of exemption that UK rules will apply re MOT. MOT Regs regs demand 3 years from date of registration OR from date of manufacture which woukld apply in these cases.
Polish vehicle on Polish plates with UKL Excise Licence. No in my estimation.
dvd
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I have had it on good authority that a lot bring over vehicles on their last legs, bangers I think we'd call them. They don't bother with any of the paperwork but simply scarp them when it becomes time to do so. They then nip back to Poland and purchase another vehicle to bring over here and so the circle continues.
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Mr X, I find your theory implausible for the simple reason that second hand cars, even old bangers, are considerably more expensive in the former Eastern Bloc than in the UK.
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Do you think they are going to the Polish equivalent of the Car Supermarket ? I would think most bangers are private sales.
A banger may cost that little bit more but then if you are running it in the UK untaxed, un insured and un Mot'ed on foreign plates, there's a few bob to be saved .
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Nope. A banger costs considerably more than in the UK. Often cars worth 500 quid here can be worth upwards of 2k in the East. Add on the cost of getting to Poland/Bulgaria/wherever in terms of travel and lost income, and it really wouldn't make sense. One example of why: in Serbia, it is illegal to import cars with emmissions lower than the Euro 3 standard. Therefore the small stock of old bangers in the country keeps their value up as demand is high. Newer second hand cars depreciate far less than here for this reason. I kid you not, 20 year old Yugos, beaten to crap, can fetch over 2000 euros.
I recently sold a left hand drive UK-reg'd 1995 M plate Fiat Ulysse here (I got £1300 for it, 130k miles, no history, quite tatty but a good runner with a year's MOT) and I was absolutely swamped with Poles and Bulgarians wanting to buy it - they were even calling me from abroad and were going to fly over to get it. They were not scammers as I told them I'd only accept sterling cash and a personal collection, and they were still interested. Some asked me to hold it on a promise whilst they booked a flight. Obviously I couldn't do that.
I sold it to an English guy taking it to his house in Italy to keep there - one Polish bloke in Sheffield (I'm in Reading) called once I'd already given the English guy first refusal, I told him I was holding the car awaiting the cash from Mr England, and he still took a punt that it'd be available by the time he got here and set off down the M1 against my advice.
I called him to tell him I'd got the cash and let the car go, and he had to turn round at Luton and go home.
Edited by Alanovich on 18/06/2009 at 16:45
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I don't live in the UK - but another EU country. We have probably tens of thousands of cars here on false plates, no tax, no MoT and probably no insurance.
They are all BRITISH cars with BRITISH drivers in them! Running the plates through the DVLA website, they come up as either unlicensed, SORN or exported.
So, don't just blame the Polish when they bring their old bangers across. It's a Europe-wide problem and everybody's doing it, even us law-abiding Brits!
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Thanks, Alanovich and WKS, for setting this one straight.
You know, Mr X almost had me fooled there.
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Given that a large portion of UK citizens dont seem to be capable of taxing, insuring or MOTing their cars, I would suggest one starts at home before looking to vistors regarding the legality of cars.
I knew a spanish chap, lovely guy genuinely, who had no real clue about car laws whatsoever, who had been on a three year contract in UK, drove his smokey 205 diesel from Spain at the beginning of his contract, never registered it, taxed it and it seems unlikely it could have ever passed an MOT and certainly didnt have one and then drove it back again when contract was up. He had no idea he had done anything wrong as he wasnt the least bit car savvy.
The lesson is dont always assume there is something knowingly illegal going on, some people just dont know.
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I agree that we should sort out the UK drivers first but what percentage of them just don't know they need tax,insurance and an MOT ?
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I was in the post office once stood in the Queue waiting to get my car tax.
I was about 3 spaces away from the front of the queue and this woman handed over her reminder form for car tax and the payment.
When asked by the clerk behind the counter where her insurance documents were, she said she didn?t have them. And when told that she could not get her car tax without it, claimed that she didn?t know that you had to produce it and subsequently kicked up a massive stink, so much to say that the entire post office went quite and she stormed out.
Despite it clearly saying on the reminder that you need to produce it, says it all really ? some people.
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almost had me fooled there.
What was it that almost fooled you CP? The 'good authority' or the fact that Poles were being singled out?
A farmer friend had a Polish labourer working for him a few years ago, for about a year. He lived in a caravan next to the barn, worked all hours and could do anything, for wages that kept my farmer friend happy (some people might understand what that means!). His aim was to earn some cash, get a car and go back home, which he duly did.
In civilian life he was an academic of some sort and incidentally a chess Master. Very agreeable chap, and formidable with it.
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:-) @ Lud
Well, it was certainly the authoritative tone of the poster. Plus the well-known fact that all Poles are devious, drunkards and are taking all our jobs. And the fact that the Daily Mail is a newspaper you can totally rely on. Etc...
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spoke to a polish lad the other day , he said cars are expensive in poland , but the insurance is cheap, . its the otherway round in england
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Many of these foreign nationals can be seen at most auctions in this country buying up bangers to run into the ground.
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Is it me or is it 'Get the Pole day'? The Germans did this in 1939 already!
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I suggest that a lot of the vehicles over here from Eastern Europe are ringers of cars stolen in Germany.
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I would just like to thank those who provided informative answers to my post.
For those of a more antagonistic nature: I am not a racsist or anti-Polish.
It was merely a question posed to satisfy my curiosity. I hope that's ok with everyone?
Good!
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I've got (or had) a lot of Polish customers and they all drive UK registered cars. I have seen a few Polish cars but they tend to be visitors, I don't know a single Polish person who drives an old Polish banger for the sole intention of trying to avade UK taxes and MOTs etc.
Sadly a lot of them are going back home because there is no work for them anymore. In general though they are nice to work for, very polite and never haggle.
I am sure some do abuse the system but that happens in all parts of society.
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i like the poles
i like the way they conduct themselves
i do business with them sometimes ,but,they do drive hard bargain
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i like the poles
i like the way they conduct themselves
Me too bb. Polish jokes American style seem pretty wide of the mark.
When I was minicabbing in South London got a call to the Polish Club just down from Clapham Common there. A regular punter, old gent, builder or something. He had his wife and another lady with him. They had been at some sort of big Polish hooley at the club.
He ushered them into the back of the car, an estate, and then moved back a yard and scrabbled at the rear lower quarter panel. Eventually I realised he was so unbelievably drunk that he thought they were in the front, and he was trying to get into the back like a gent. I ushered him gently into the front seat. He behaved with gentlemanly, impeccable old-style East European courtesy at all times.
I wish we were a bit more like that sometimes, I must say.
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