burstnereli Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 We are planning to move to France with our car and motorhome. Does anyone know if it is possible to insure an english registered motorhome with a french insurance company. If not what are our options? We have been told that to change the van to french plates we need to make alterations to our gas system (gaslow) to conform to french regs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Could you not Google for, and then ask directly, some French Insurance Companies and Brokers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petra Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 As far as we are aware you cannot insure a british registered vehicle in another country, or a foreign vehicle in the UK. We could not insure our UK reg vehicle in Greece or our Greek vehicle in the UK. You must have an address in the country to register your vehicle and then you can get insurance in that country. You may also have problems changing your vehicle to French registration as if the door is on the UK side they say it is dangerous and wont insure it! Most people use family or friends adresses in the UK to insure and tax their vehicles but you are only allowed to keep the vehicle in another country for a maximum of 6 months. France I believe is slightly different and you have to change it within 3 months. If you are living there then it should not be a problem to change your vehicles onto French plates, or sell your vehicles and buy French ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randonneur Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 First of all, what van do you have and where are you thinking of moving to in France. When you want to insure your van in France they will only do it for 4 months and in that time they expect you to have had it re-registered onto French plates. It depends, as far as I am aware, on which Departement you are going to live. Here in the Charente, as long as you have the necessary paperwork, then it is fairly easy to do. There is a list of things you have to have, a bit long winded to put on here, but if you email me I will explain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elamessa Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 You will need the following documents for your motorhome. European Whole Vehicle Type Approval for the chassis. You can get this from the vehicle manufacture. European Certificate of Conformity for the Habitation side listing the 'EN' numbers. You can get this from the converter. You will need to change the headlights and the rear lights because in all probability your reversing light and fog light will be on the opposite side to the french. You may have to change your speedo to km's if you haven't got a dual readout. I went through the process last year and in the end I sold the van back in the uk because it was such a PITA. If I were you I would sell your motorhome and buy over here at least that way you know it will be French legal!! Your car you can get insured on your english registration.....there are lots of Brits here that do it..........but I don't think it's totally legal.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burstnereli Posted March 8, 2011 Author Share Posted March 8, 2011 Hello , We have a German Burstner Eligance right hand drive motorhome. We are moving to Charente. The door is on the continental side. Things have moved rather quickly for us. Until this week we were going to use the french house as a holiday home, but we finally got a reasonable offer on our UK house. We are in portugal at the moment and our email server is playing up. I should be grateful for any information you can provide. My email address is rogerworrall@talktalk.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 burstnereli - 2011-03-08 2:25 PM We are planning to move to France with our car and motorhome. Does anyone know if it is possible to insure an english registered motorhome with a french insurance company. If not what are our options? We have been told that to change the van to french plates we need to make alterations to our gas system (gaslow) to conform to french regs. Do you mean that you will be selling up in UK to take up permanent residence in France, possibly visiting UK only briefly and from time to time thereafter? If this is what you intend, I think you will find life in general far easier if you sell both car and van in UK, and replace once in France.The exception would be if the van is LHD. If your van is RHD with the door on the UK nearside, once in France it will be on French offside, and you will have great trouble getting it registered in most departments, and in some you just may not be able to do this at all. If it has the habitation door on the UK offside (Burstner? Possible.), you should be able to register and insure it OK in France, but will first need to provide evidence of its type approval credentials (again, if Burstner, should be straightforward). However, if you do register it in France, its trade-in/sale value will be very low if RHD so, even then, I would say in the medium term it will be cheaper and better to sell in UK, and then buy a LHD van in France.For the car, it will be worth squat diddly in France because RHD, so even with the loss in trying to sell for cash in UK, you will still be better off in the medium term by buying LHD in France. Also, driving a RHD car in right hand traffic is not that much fun, and carries its own risks. Not too bad with the van, due to higher driving position.Neither are particularly cheap options, but RHD vehicles in France are likely to be pretty much worthless, so when the time comes to change either you will pretty much be starting from scratch. Bear in mind that even if both vehicles are from European stables, certain parts are specific to RHD/LHD, and unless in a large town, may not be readily available.Sorry Roger, posts "crossed" and you have answered several of my questions. Notwithstanding, I still think the eventual sale/trade of the RHD van in France will prove prohibitively costly, and re-registering in back into UK without a permanent UK address an impossibility. It would possibly be worth enquiring what you can get for the Burstner against a replacement bought in France on your way home, but I suspect you will have great difficulty even getting an offer. If you want to keep a van, sell before you move, or look at a sale or return arrangement with a reliable UK Burstner agent, so that it can sell at a better price while you are in France. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ham Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 On Sky last week there was a program. It was a repeat. it was called Emergency Bikers. It showed Essex police at the Dartford crossing checking vehicles with ANPR. They stopped a british registered car that came up with no insurance. It was being driven by an English man on a 24hr visit to England from is home in France. When asked about his insurance he explained and produced a certificate of insurance from a French company. He was advised it was not valid in the UK.To be valid the French insurer had to be affiliated to the British insurance system and it was not .To compound matters his car had no MOT. After a lot of arguements his car was siezed and towed away..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Collings Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Re the question of habitation doors being on the wrong side. My guess is that regulations regarding PSVs (from memory PSVs are group N1) are wrongly being applied. Obviously you do not want a bus load of kids or pensioners getting out into traffic In the whole of the EU a motorhome is a group M1 vehicle the same as an ordinary car where doors on both sides are reasonably common. I have heard rumours that the french gas regs do not permit compression fittings but again I have a nasty idea they are cofusing the requirements for road fuel systems and those for habitation systems. Sell the 'van and and buy a French registered one seems like a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 I re-registered a small Fiat car in France in 2004. It was reasonably easy in this department (63 Puy-de-Dome) although it involved several visits to the Prefecture city, about 50 miles away. The DRIRE obtained the necessary technical details from Fiat and I had to prove that there was no finance owing on the car and visit the local tax office. This was the only place I had a problem as the official initially declined to sign the form saying that I could not register a car until I was a tax resident. I had to argue this one and won! The car had to be taken to the Controle Technique as the UK MOT would not be accepted but I did not have to change the lights or the speedo - the lights have the stick on beam benders and have passed the test 4 times now since 2004. The mileage is just entered as kilometres - there is not even 10 000 miles on the clock yet so in kms that is even better! I am not convinced that the model is correctly recorded but I am insured in all countries in the euro zone, including the UK (as the car is so small this is academic as I will never bring it back to the UK , although in theory I could tow it) and including breakdown. I personally prefer to drive on the continent in the RHD vehicle (I know exactly where the fosse is when an oncoming French vehicle comes round the corner!) and have considered looking into registering my motorhome in France. If you want UK insurance for a French address I believe this is possible through Adrian Flux (?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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