Taking UK car to Ukraine

3 Posts
Hello everyone,
I am a newbie so please be gentle
.
We are planning to move to Ukraine for few or more years. My husband is from Ukraine and we absolutely like the country, it is a very beautifull country, but because of its bad economical, political situation it is not seen as a Good country. We have some property there, and my Mother-in-law is looking after it, but it's getting too hard for her, so we need to step in. We have 2 small children and want them to grow up (or at least to spend their childhood) on the seaside, away from 'nasties' in London air.
Now, we have this problem...
We have a car that was bought on finance. We had a van on finance, so decided to exchange it into the car, so we could all travel (the van has 3 seats, and there are 4 of us). we extended our finance for 4 more years, but our monthly repayments have halfed, meaning that we can pay them, while not in UK, out of the small income we have in UK. So our plan is to take car to ukraine, while it will be slowly repayed in UK. We don't want to give the car back to the dealer, as we have already paid over £7k for our van, and if we go to ukraine without a car, we will not have money to buy a car there, and we can't get a credit over there. And, you knever know, maybe after 6 months we'll run back to UK...
So now, we need help with the documentation.
Exporting a car. I think (but have to check it) under our credit agreement, we can't export our car. Even if we did, ukrainians won't allow us to import a RHD car, we will have to make changes to it, we could be difficult and costly. i found on the internet, that I (as a foreigner) can bring a car for 2 months, and then'll have to register it with local police and can keep it in ukraine for 1 year, but don't know how it will be after 1 year.
Insurance. To travel through Europe we need 'Green card'. Called my insurance company, Direct Line, it costs £30 for 2 weeks. Or should I buy it for 4-5 days, enough for us to get through Europe to ukraine. I understand we will need to buy insurance on ukraine border, as Direct Line doesn't cover ukraine. Anyone know how much it will cost, etc?
Road tax. DVLA says we will have to pay UK road taxes, even if we will not use UK roads:eek:. This adds £200 extra a year to our expences. I think we will still have to pay some sort of road tax in ukraine, seems quite illogical to pay tax in both countries.
So it seems a no win situation, we either have to leave a car in UK and pay for it, but not use it. Or, if we take it to ukraine, we will have to pay tax and insurance in both countries:eek:
Any help, please....
I am a newbie so please be gentle

We are planning to move to Ukraine for few or more years. My husband is from Ukraine and we absolutely like the country, it is a very beautifull country, but because of its bad economical, political situation it is not seen as a Good country. We have some property there, and my Mother-in-law is looking after it, but it's getting too hard for her, so we need to step in. We have 2 small children and want them to grow up (or at least to spend their childhood) on the seaside, away from 'nasties' in London air.
Now, we have this problem...
We have a car that was bought on finance. We had a van on finance, so decided to exchange it into the car, so we could all travel (the van has 3 seats, and there are 4 of us). we extended our finance for 4 more years, but our monthly repayments have halfed, meaning that we can pay them, while not in UK, out of the small income we have in UK. So our plan is to take car to ukraine, while it will be slowly repayed in UK. We don't want to give the car back to the dealer, as we have already paid over £7k for our van, and if we go to ukraine without a car, we will not have money to buy a car there, and we can't get a credit over there. And, you knever know, maybe after 6 months we'll run back to UK...
So now, we need help with the documentation.
Exporting a car. I think (but have to check it) under our credit agreement, we can't export our car. Even if we did, ukrainians won't allow us to import a RHD car, we will have to make changes to it, we could be difficult and costly. i found on the internet, that I (as a foreigner) can bring a car for 2 months, and then'll have to register it with local police and can keep it in ukraine for 1 year, but don't know how it will be after 1 year.
Insurance. To travel through Europe we need 'Green card'. Called my insurance company, Direct Line, it costs £30 for 2 weeks. Or should I buy it for 4-5 days, enough for us to get through Europe to ukraine. I understand we will need to buy insurance on ukraine border, as Direct Line doesn't cover ukraine. Anyone know how much it will cost, etc?
Road tax. DVLA says we will have to pay UK road taxes, even if we will not use UK roads:eek:. This adds £200 extra a year to our expences. I think we will still have to pay some sort of road tax in ukraine, seems quite illogical to pay tax in both countries.
So it seems a no win situation, we either have to leave a car in UK and pay for it, but not use it. Or, if we take it to ukraine, we will have to pay tax and insurance in both countries:eek:
Any help, please....
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I have a car that I drove back to Holland and left it parked in at my friends house (I had to return by plane due to some emergency- had not time to get my car back in time before the MOT expired -- and now I have my car over-there, no insurance, no MOT no road Tax(i cannot tax the car because I have no MOT) -- luckily for me the car is old car, so I am planning to sell it as spares in Holland. I cannot risk to drive it back because if police(in Holland) will stop me I will be in serious trouble
this is another thing to consider, what will you do when you plan to return; another thing to consider is that DVLA will want an UK address, and it you technically live, and become Ukraine resident you will have an Ukrainian address.
I did not even go into the leasing/finance agreement.
In my opinion, you will be better off, handing the car back, take a loan and buy a car locally, and pay the loan back in the same way you will pay the car.
this way, when the times comes, you sell the car back in Ukraine (I know for sure that the car depreciation in the old eastern block is far lower than the Right hand drive market) -- so you will be far better off.
There are other things to consider if you take an expensive car there (without insurance)-- Ukraine might have lots of uninsured drivers, so if you get involved in an accident, you will have to pay, out of your own money (and the police might investigate your paperwork).
There are cost of repairs as well, and some parts are only made for UK cars. I once drove in Germany, with an UK LHD Peugeot 205, the speedometer cable snapped, went to a local garage and they said that is an easy job (and not expensive) -- What they did not know was that because the fact that dash board was located on the opposite side, the cable for LHD was a bit longer (about an inch) for the LHD vehicle. And after I paid all the work they had to keep my car in for a week while they had the part sent from UK. This is only an minuscule example of problems you might experience.
I would consider other options that will not involve taking an UK car abroad. Think at other options, there are other options that will be far more economical.
We don't know how long we are going to stay in ukraine. We have a plan to come back to UK next february (we are leaving for ukraine at the end of June) and restart our small business for few months. My husband makes beehives (hence my name:rotfl:) and the beehives usually sell in spring and beginning of summer. I gues we could buy a green card for the time enough for us to get to ukraine, and in ukraine we'll have to buy a local insurance, as UK one will be invalid. Then we could cancel a UK insurance, and declare our car SORN. And, before we come back to UK we could purchase car insurance, and get all the documents sent to my parents in UK, and they could send us a road tax. Our MOT expires next May. When we'll be back in UK, we could get a new one.
Does anyone see any flaws with this plan?
P.S. If I take car overseas, can I Really declare SORN, or they keep track of all cars that leave UK?
Not strictly true.
It needs to be taxed if it is on a public road anywhere.
Bad advice. The EU requires that a car being driven in another Member State is legally taxed in the country where it is registered.
http://www.tryukraine.com/info/driving.shtml
Thanks. But the thing is, that ukraine is not in EU, not a member state, so maybe...
in an earlier post I stated that I have my car trapped in Holland; I am aware that I cannot drive the car any more; I said that the situation is far more complicated. The car is parked off road at my friends house and I have not a way of getting the car legally back in the UK-- the only legal alternative I have is to have it towed (off road- not even an wheel on any road). This is expensive -- so I will choose to sell the car as spares to a scrap yard in Holland.
But as someone posted, the car will be driven outside EU. So, technically, they can take the car off UK roads and not have to pay any UK road Tax; this will be the situation for 2 -3 -4 years; the problems, as I already posted will start once they will need to bring the car back within EU and UK.