NI Numberplates etc, anyone know how this works?

[Russ (mines a pint)]

Bought a car recently and asked if the numberplate came with it as it looked like a private numberplate , as wanted to check out its history as it said it was an import- the insurance and history checks turned out ok 

-was told it would have to come with that numberplate as it was originally registered in Northern Ireland, sure enough all the history is ok but cant see why it is an import?
looking at the bills and service history the first 3 years where outside UK yet seems to have been serviced by the Nissan dealer in Derry but I suspect the original customer was outside the UK part of Ireland ...
- should it not have had a republic of Ireland  numberplate for that section of time? - the service history shows the NI numberplate throughout? 


Just curious … price was fantastic but just gonna need to know what I need to say when the time comes to sell it in the future - its an oldish motor so assuming they were just taking advantage of economic situation at the time , no political comments please 

[Killybegs]

If it was registered in the republic, the owner would have had to pay VRT which can be up to 25% of the value. Consequently, many owners living just over the border will try to avoid re-registering. My next door neighbour has just re-registered his car 3 years after returning from the UK. I think he was being leant on!

[w124bob]

Won't make the slightest difference , some letters which were not used here on the mainland had been in common usage in NI, Z being the one that comes to mind. UK plate dealers sell ex NI plates, BNZ**** being popular to Mercedes owners. Because there was no date prefix there was a good market for these plates, a cheap way to de-age your car. For example KRZ5295 currently forsale on a dealer site for £50.

[Horsetan]

If it was registered in the republic, the owner would have had to pay VRT which can be up to 25% of the value. Consequently, many owners living just over the border will try to avoid re-registering. My next door neighbour has just re-registered his car 3 years after returning from the UK. I think he was being leant on!

It can work both ways. I used to see Republic registered vehicles frequently in London - the owners sure as hell had no intention of re-registering here.

 

Romanian and Bulgarian drivers have taken that a stage further by buying UK RHD cars, re-registering on their national plates and continuing to use the cars here. No VED, no MoT, no insurance, no police enforcement, no problem!

[Kickstart]

Hi

 

At one time cars were a LOT cheaper in the south (think 1/3 cheaper for an Alfa 156). To the extent some Northern Ireland main dealers were selling new imports

 

NI plates used to be 3 letters one of which was an I. The 2nd and 3rd letters were the geographical area, and the first just went up sequentially. So it would go from AIJ1 up to AIJ9999 , then on to BIJ1, etc

 

NI plates became quite popular as cherished plates. Maybe to discourage this as they got to the end of sequences containing the letter I the replacements had the letter Z.

 

You can generally keep the NI plate when moving a car to the mainland. Quite common as the plates were not obviously age related.

 

I would guess that the import marker has just been flagged up by it originally being NI registered.

 

All the best

 

Katy

['CHARD]

Romanian and Bulgarian drivers have taken that a stage further by buying UK RHD cars, re-registering on their national plates and continuing to use the cars here. No VED, no MoT, no insurance, no police enforcement, no problem!

 

I'm obviously an innocent - is this potentially very dangerous and malign practice for real?

[Zomboid]

There is a limit to how long a vehicle can be used continually in the UK without UK/ DVLA registration, which I think is a matter of months.

 

Of course, people doing things illegally is another thing, but it's certainly not a legitimate practice to register a car abroad and use it mainly in the UK. Wouldn't be surprised if NI/RoI had a special arrangement though.

[Fat Controller]

I was told that MoT tests were a lot stricter in Ulster, and had to be carried out in Government-operated test centres- something to with cutting-off a useful income for paramilitary groups. The result was that vehicles that could be repaired fairly easily found their way on to the UK market. This applied to both private cars and PSFs; some fleets in the NE seemed to be virtually all ex-Ulsterbus.

[MiDAS]

It can work both ways. I used to see Republic registered vehicles frequently in London - the owners sure as hell had no intention of re-registering here.

 

Romanian and Bulgarian drivers have taken that a stage further by buying UK RHD cars, re-registering on their national plates and continuing to use the cars here. No VED, no MoT, no insurance, no police enforcement, no problem!

Cambs Police have been enforcing this recently this Eastern European practise is becoming too common

Edited September 4, 2018 by MiDAS

[MiDAS]

I have two vehicles with N.I. consecutive numbers purchased years ago via the DVLA. N.I. is part of the UK they are therefore

UK plates

[jonny777]

It can work both ways. I used to see Republic registered vehicles frequently in London - the owners sure as hell had no intention of re-registering here.

 

Romanian and Bulgarian drivers have taken that a stage further by buying UK RHD cars, re-registering on their national plates and continuing to use the cars here. No VED, no MoT, no insurance, no police enforcement, no problem!

 

 

It will become a problem if they have a serious accident where they are at fault. 

[Kickstart]

I was told that MoT tests were a lot stricter in Ulster, and had to be carried out in Government-operated test centres- something to with cutting-off a useful income for paramilitary groups. The result was that vehicles that could be repaired fairly easily found their way on to the UK market. This applied to both private cars and PSFs; some fleets in the NE seemed to be virtually all ex-Ulsterbus.

 

 

A lot more standard now. Used to be the NI mot regime was far more lax, both in timescales and things tested. But these days they seem to be good plating the MOT test.

 

Common trick was getting the ferry over from Larne and getting an MOT in Scotland. Saved the common massive waits for an NI mot test.

 

 

I have two vehicles with N.I. consecutive numbers purchased years ago via the DVLA. N.I. is part of the UK they are therefore

UK plates

True, but NI used to have its own independent registration regime. Still had cardboard old style registration documents until the late 1980s. They also tried 2 part driving licences in the mid 1980s, with a paper part and a plastic part with a photo etched onto it.

 

Hence importing a car to the mainland did mean reregistering it with the DVLA

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Horsetan]

I'm obviously an innocent - is this potentially very dangerous and malign practice for real?

I see it every day in London. Burnt Oak is home to quite a few RO-plated ex-UK cars. There's a Romanian-plated Audi parked in my street, right-hand drive, ex-UK (you can see the remains of the GB sticker on the rear bumper).

 

 

If you live and work here, why would you go to the extent of re-registering a UK car on your country's plates?

 

The other thing is that the Romanian plate system is virtually identical to the current UK one, so plate-cloning is possible: one car may show up as something quite different on the DVLA database. The "SV" prefix stands for Suceava in Northern Romania, but also for Aberdeen. "CJ" is Cluj (NW Romania) and Cardiff. Almost every Romanian regional prefix is duplicated by a UK one, with the exception of Ilfov (IF), Ialomita (IL) and Iasi (IS).

 

Anyone been in collision with a RO-plated car? Good luck with the insurance claim. It's not just the Romanians re-registering; the Bulgarians do it too, as well as some Hungarian and Polish drivers.

 

The rule is that if the owner/driver is normally resident in the UK (which means living and working, in practice), then it's illegal to be running a foreign-plated car. But, as with most things, enforcement is everything. All police forces have had funding cuts, so where's the money to enforce the laws that we expect them to enforce?

Edited September 4, 2018 by Horsetan

[Russ (mines a pint)]

All very interesting - A couple of useful ideas as to what the case with my own is :
 

I would guess that the import marker has just been flagged up by it originally being NI registered.

 

Its actually on the V5 docs - 

 

Wouldn't be surprised if NI/RoI had a special arrangement though.

 

Yes we know that to be true - I didn't want to get political on this but this has been made more than apparent by the ' Brexit negotiations'
 

 

If it was registered in the republic, the owner would have had to pay VRT which can be up to 25% of the value. Consequently, many owners living just over the border will try to avoid re-registering. My next door neighbour has just re-registered his car 3 years after returning from the UK. I think he was being leant on!

 

 

I would imagine that this car must have been supplied to the UK dealer - which must also have supplied cars to nearby parts of the republic due to its border location - the thing which I think is odd is the dealer was using with its UK ie NI registration when doing the first 2 annual services etc. whilst the DVLA considered it to be out of the country lol … 

From my own point of view I got this cheap as a stopgap between a potentially expensive repair on a newer vehicle (DPF woes) - its straight, drives well , full years MOT & service history and covers everything in soot and clag so I'm happy! 

[Ramblin Rich]

drives well , full years MOT & service history and covers everything in soot and clag so I'm happy!

If it's sooty/claggy I'm surprised it passed an MOT recently....

Edited September 4, 2018 by Ramblin Rich

[Russ (mines a pint)]

If it's sooty/claggy I'm surprised it passed an MOT recently....

 

figure of speech as to not having a dpf  

 

its pre 2007/8 ish which seems to be the cut -off point for making diesels unusable for normal motorists 

[Ramblin Rich]

That's alright then, says the man who gleefully traded in a 55 plate Zafira with a lot of horses missing from under the bonnet and an ability to lay down a smoke screen WW2 naval destroyers would be proud of...

[Quarryscapes]

Wouldn't worry about it being an import etc or NI reg. I've previously had a UK Spec Toyota Celica classed as an import because it was originally the dealer demonstrator from the Isle of Man. More recently I have had an NI registered Mitsubishi FTO (Japanese import) that was actually living in Dublin before coming over here. When I sold it I kept the registration because I like the fact that it's dateless, it'w now on my Civic. The FTO had interesting paperwork as the logbook only stated it was a Mitsubishi, it never recorded model, nor did it correctly record the registered in UK dates correctly. 

[Kickstart]

I would imagine that this car must have been supplied to the UK dealer - which must also have supplied cars to nearby parts of the republic due to its border location - the thing which I think is odd is the dealer was using with its UK ie NI registration when doing the first 2 annual services etc. whilst the DVLA considered it to be out of the country lol … 

 

If it had an NI registration then unlikely to have been sold in to the south. If sold in to the south then it would have had a Southern Ireland registration. Might have been used in the south on an NI registration, but that wouldn’t make it an import as such

 

Suspect that as NI registrations were handled separately in Colraine, moving it to the GB DVLA system just triggered it as being not new at registration and marked as an import

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Jenny Emily]

 

Anyone been in collision with a RO-plated car? Good luck with the insurance claim. It's not just the Romanians re-registering; the Bulgarians do it too, as well as some Hungarian and Polish drivers.

 

The rule is that if the owner/driver is normally resident in the UK (which means living and working, in practice), then it's illegal to be running a foreign-plated car. But, as with most things, enforcement is everything. All police forces have had funding cuts, so where's the money to enforce the laws that we expect them to enforce?

 

 

It's possible for anyone to check insurance and MOT status of any UK registered vehicle through the DVLA website. I wonder if there is an equivalent webpage in other countries that can be used to find out if overseas cars are legit and appropriately insured? After all, an expat doing the same trick living in Poland could be easily rumbled by some-one there checking the DVLA site with their reg.

 

My understanding was that if Police stop these vehicles then they are entitled to ask for proof of insurance etc, and if the driver does not have documents with them then they can impound the car until the driver can prove it is insured. I know that my insurance doesn't insure me to drive overseas on my Micra, and for only 30 days a year on my Volvo so unless they have a bells and whistles policy it isn't going to be insured by default.

 

There's a Polish registered van down the street from here which is RHD, and the person who uses it is living in one of the houses. I have never seen the van disappear for long enough for it to make a trip to London, let alone Poland.

[Russ (mines a pint)]

Wouldn't worry about it being an import etc or NI reg. I've previously had a UK Spec Toyota Celica classed as an import because it was originally the dealer demonstrator from the Isle of Man. More recently I have had an NI registered Mitsubishi FTO (Japanese import) that was actually living in Dublin before coming over here. When I sold it I kept the registration because I like the fact that it's dateless, it'w now on my Civic. The FTO had interesting paperwork as the logbook only stated it was a Mitsubishi, it never recorded model, nor did it correctly record the registered in UK dates correctly. 

 

I wasn't worried as such more like curious - 

I came to the vehicle by Gumtree which does a basic check of reg no. for Write-off, Accident, Finance etc info , I also checked MOT History online for mileage etc , checked the Vin no's matched etc and that it was tax and insurable.. and its probably worth more in bits if anything goes seriously wrong so certainly wasn't gonna pay extra for an enhanced check.

 

 

[Horsetan]

It's possible for anyone to check insurance and MOT status of any UK registered vehicle through the DVLA website. I wonder if there is an equivalent webpage in other countries that can be used to find out if overseas cars are legit and appropriately insured? After all, an expat doing the same trick living in Poland could be easily rumbled by some-one there checking the DVLA site with their reg.

That sort of information isn't publicly available in Romania, etc. It usually takes an official police request from here to obtain the information from foreign authorities and even then it may take days.

 

My understanding was that if Police stop these vehicles then they are entitled to ask for proof of insurance etc, and if the driver does not have documents with them then they can impound the car until the driver can prove it is insured. I know that my insurance doesn't insure me to drive overseas on my Micra, and for only 30 days a year on my Volvo so unless they have a bells and whistles policy it isn't going to be insured by default.

Insurance papers can be forged. The key questions to be asking the driver are where (s)he lives and what job (s)he does. Tax or employment records will conclusively show who's normally resident. And if normally resident, the car should be kept impounded until re-registered with DVLA.

 

To be fair, DVLA cottoned onto this sort of thing back in about 2013, and have consulted with HMRC, port authorities and various constabularies, but only a few of the latter - six plus Cambridgeshire (see earlier post above) - have actually tried enforcement. The Met have bigger fish to fry - terrorism, shootings/stabbings, etc. - so Eastern European motorists evading the rules comes very low down on the list of priorities....which means they'll continue to thumb their noses because the only things they have to pay for are fuel and the odd repair, unlike the rest of us fools.

 

There's a Polish registered van down the street from here which is RHD, and the person who uses it is living in one of the houses. I have never seen the van disappear for long enough for it to make a trip to London, let alone Poland.

Few of these vehicles actually appear to leave the jurisdiction. The Audi in my photo is always hanging around this area.

[E3109]

Just for info, I think I'm right in saying that Eire and UK car registrations were interchangeable until approx 1982, presumably there was a shared arrangement up to then. Basically, anything with a Z in it was Irish, whether ROI or NI.

 

For instance, a bloke round these parts (Lancs) had a reg 12 AZ or similar which is clearly a ROI plate rather than NI. Last saw this car/reg around five years ago but I'd imagine it's still current/valid in GB.

 

Not sure about the rules now given the divergence of both authorities a few years ago, and in fact I recall an Irish bus preservationist who had to reregister his Dublin Atlantean to a GB 'K' plate a while back because his bus was staying in GB for a year.

Presumably he would get the historic Irish plate back on its return to Erin.

[Kickstart]

Hi

 

Foreign vehicles not being fully legit isn’t a new thing. Was quite common among Uk ex pats living in a Belgium when I worked there in the late 1990s.

 

I doubt virtually any Uk police officers could understand a Romanian insurance certificate.

 

As an aside, I believe it is a requirement that any Uk motor insurance policy covers use in the rest of Europe at the legal minimum. The insurers can restrict the cover so outside the Uk your fully comp cover is only 3rd party cover.

 

NI and Republic Of Ireland plates were not interchangeable. NI plates contained an I, and the letter Z was only used quite a bit later (and that stirred up some issues in some areas with people complaining that the Z made it look like a Republic registered car). Years ago Republic rear registration plates were red.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[E3109]

Hi Katy

 

Thanks for clarifying that, interesting piece on Irish registrations in the link below, it was possible to transfer a ROI plate to GB before 1 Jan 1987, and not 1982 as I thought.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland