Buying a car in Northern Ireland

jammin_2

Just a quickie..

If I buy a car in Northern Ireland, on Northern Ireland plates, can I register it in England?

dieselglider

Do you mean can you tax it, or re-register with english plates? Can't really fore-see any problems either way.

jammin_2

dieselglider wrote: »

Do you mean can you tax it, or re-register with english plates? Can't really fore-see any problems either way.

Sorry, I didn't phrase my question very well.

I'm in NI currently, visiting friends, possibly buying their car from them. If I do so, can I fill out the V5 with my home address in England, and drive it home to England and use it there "as is" (with NI plates)?

Or does a car registered in Northern Ireland have to stay in Northern Ireland unless plates changed to UK mainland plates?

bryanb

No such thing as English plates, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. No need to do anything other than register it in your name.

dieselglider

jammin wrote: »

Sorry, I didn't phrase my question very well.

I'm in NI currently, visiting friends, possibly buying their car from them. If I do so, can I fill out the V5 with my home address in England, and drive it home to England and use it there "as is" (with NI plates)?

Or does a car registered in Northern Ireland have to stay in Northern Ireland unless plates changed to UK mainland plates?

Just fill out the V5 as normal, the plates don't have to change to English ones.

jammin_2

bryanb wrote: »

No such thing as English plates, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. No need to do anything other than register it in your name.

Are you sure about this? Northern Ireland is of course part of the UK, but they have very different procedures regards motoring. They have the DVLNI instead of the DVLA, their MOT system is very different, their drivers licences are different, and so are their number plates. Perhaps instead of "English plates" I should have written "UK mainland plates".

I'm just wondering if anyone else has bought a car in NI and taken it to England.

jammin_2

dieselglider wrote: »

Just fill out the V5 as normal, the plates don't have to change to English ones.

Grand, thanks a million dieselglider.

suki1964

jammin wrote: »

Are you sure about this? Northern Ireland is of course part of the UK, but they have very different procedures regards motoring. They have the DVLNI instead of the DVLA, their MOT system is very different, their drivers licences are different, and so are their number plates. Perhaps instead of "English plates" I should have written "UK mainland plates".

I'm just wondering if anyone else has bought a car in NI and taken it to England.

My husband did - years back.

We just re registered it just before the tax disc was due, that saved the hassles of claiming back un used road tax from NI. We kept the VIB plate although we could have asked for "mainland ones"

We had to do the same the other way around last year - re register a mainland car in NI, was a lot quicker this end and once again we waited till the road tax was due and saved the plates as thie time they were "cherished" ones. Thats been the only problem tbh, we cant tax that car at the post office, we have to go to the vehicle licensing office

Edited to add, we may be DVLNI and everything is " different" but its all run out of DVLA Swansea and guess what? Takes the "two" ages to get their acts together )

jammin_2

Thanks guys. But now I'm confused..

dieselglider said to fill out the V5 as normal, presumably as if it was an "English" car and I was in England..

But suki1964 mentioned about re-registering and having the option to change to "UK mainland" number plates, (seemingly) rather like important a vehicle from another country.

My inkling tells me that suki1964 might be right, in that the car may have to be de-registered in NI by the DVLNI and re-registered in Great Britain by the DVLA in Swansea (with the option to have new plates or keep the original from NI?).

Perhaps I'm thick, but I'm still looking for some clarity on this.

harveybobbles

As a garage we buy cars from NI. When we sell them we have to send off the V5 filled in, a V55/5, customers insurance, MOT and a chq for the road tax. This all goes to a LVLO, not Swansea.

On the V55/5 you specify if you want to keep the current NI number or pencil in the reg letter - If it was reg'd August 1998 you'd put an R.

NI car's dont need an MOT til they are 4 years old, so you will need to MOT it 1st if it's coming here to live.

jammin_2

harveybobbles wrote: »

As a garage we buy cars from NI. When we sell them we have to send off the V5 filled in, a V55/5, customers insurance, MOT and a chq for the road tax. This all goes to a LVLO, not Swansea.

On the V55/5 you specify if you want to keep the current NI number or pencil in the reg letter - If it was reg'd August 1998 you'd put an R.

NI car's dont need an MOT til they are 4 years old, so you will need to MOT it 1st if it's coming here to live.

Gotcha, thanks. But what if the car's still got a few months road tax left on it, from when it was in NI? It think suki1964 mentioned that it's possible to delay the re-registration of the vehicle in order to avoid wasting the current road tax. Is that right? Surely a delay in registering the vehicle with the details of the new owner, would mean it's still registered in the name and address of the previous owner, which surely can't be legal.