Do you need car tax to take the car on a ferry?

Rover_Driver

olly300 wrote: »

I have brought my tax disc online for a few years now and they have decreased the grace period last year. They also made it very clear how long you have until you must display your new tax disc.

BTW Christmas and New Year are odd periods so I expect they give some leeway then, however end February/beginning of March isn't around any bank holidays.

'Grace Days' was introduced by the Finance Act 2008, before that there was no grace period. It is 5 working days, which explains the extended period at Christmas and New Year due to the Bank Holidays.

missile

Many ferry ports have introduced NPR and can spot you in an instance if you have no tax or insurance.

You may get away with it, but IMHO it is not worth the risk.

mikey72

lil_bird wrote: »

Hello,

I have a quick question.

The car tax runs out 29th of this month. We are booked to go over to England on a stena line ferry on March 9th.

We are moving to England so the ferry trip is one way, the only reason we would like to take the car with us is so we can take a few items with us.

Once we are in England the car is being scrapped, its 15 years old and on its last legs.

Would we need to tax the car for us to do the above?

I probably would buy the tax.

The last time I came from the ferry ports back into the midlands, the motorway had an ANPR camera over each lane, I think most routes from the ferries do, so if you're driving without tax it'll probably flag.

You would have to register the car to your new address to get the refund though.

molerat

Many ferry ports have ANPR looking out for smuggler / criminal activity flagged vehicles. I see no reason why they would not use them for another revenue stream.

vaio

molerat wrote: »

Many ferry ports have ANPR looking out for smuggler / criminal activity flagged vehicles. I see no reason why they would not use them for another revenue stream.

Yep, fair point but my experience from few years ago suggest it wasn't the case then (or maybe I was just lucky!)

vaio wrote: »

When I went to renew my tax (expired December) on the 12th of Jan it failed the online MOT check.

When I found the certificate I discovered it ran out last August so I’ve been driving MOT less for almost six months. During that time I must have covered the thick end of 10,000 miles including multiple trips into central London, up and down the M1 & M4 and over the Channel twice without hearing a peep from any of the ANPR units I must have passed.

Maybe no MOT by itself is too small a crime to bother with, maybe the MOT database isn’t linked to ANPR or maybe I was just lucky

Joe_Horner

Is the car NI registered?

If it is then you won't be able to tax it here anyway and you have to register / tax the car at a DVLA office:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVehicle/ImportingAndExportingAVehicle/DG_4022583

Clearly, you can't do that till you're here so pone the DVLA (the UK one, not NI) and ask them if it's OK for you to drive over without tax so you can get down to the office as soon as it opens. Then scrap the car.

Also, not sure if the UK ANPR system has access to the NI registration / tax database anyway?

s_b

if you are bringing in a car you intend to scrap and dont want to tax it too what does that say about the condition of it to someone who works with a big chief hat on?
i would want to go under the radar not put a beacon on my head
get it taxed

Joe_Horner

s_b wrote: »

if you are bringing in a car you intend to scrap and dont want to tax it too what does that say about the condition of it to someone who works with a big chief hat on?
i would want to go under the radar not put a beacon on my head
get it taxed

Have you seen the condition of what some people think of as scrap cars though?

Then again, those people usually wouldn't blink at paying the tax cos it'd be less than pocket change for them

Lum

The Ireland -> GB ferries seem to be pretty lax in security in my experience, though I haven't used them in a few years now and with all the IRA stuff flaring up again it may have changed.

I've had exactly two run ins with security, and I used to use the ferry quite a lot in the course of doing my previous job.

First time, I was driving a battered J reg Volvo 940 and they were speaking to everybody who came through, conversation went like this:

- What have you got in the boot?
- Just a bag of clothes, a laptop and a jerry can full of petrol.
- I'm sorry, I think I misheard you, I thought you said you had a can of petrol, and if you said that I'd have to check your boot and confiscate it. Can you tell me what's in your boot again?
- Just a bag of clothes and a laptop.
- Ok, on you go.

Second time I was driving a lightly modified Japanese import Subaru Legacy B4 RSK saloon and they singled me out from the queue, asked me to open the bonnet and boot, didn't even look in the boot but had a nose in the engine bay, asked me what car it was and how fast it went as they've never seen one before, then let me go.

Sgt_Pepper_2

A lot of vehicles tax isn't held on the pnc so it may only be dvla checks that catch you.