Purchasing a vehicle/motorhome in the UK without EU

Dear Sir,

Thank you again for your time. I took some time to answer your question because the UK documents needed for vehicle registration are apparently easy, when in fact they are not. As part of the registration process, you need to provide proof of your identity and address, within the UK. This can be done with a UK driving licence. However, for a driving licence you need to be a legal resident of the UK (i.e. spend over 3 months). If you do not have a driving licence, you must provide your passport (which can be foreign) and any of the following: 1) recent utility bill; 2) recent bank or building society statement; 3) medical card; or 4) council tax bill for the current year. The problem, as you would certainly see, is that all of these mean you have to rent / own a home, which is not very practical.

If, somehow, you pass this step, you do not have to be in the UK any particular amount of time. Also, for a British driver's licence, after the original residency requirement, there is no need to maintain it as long as you do not drive in another country over the time limit which incurs the obligation to get a local driver's licence. Same for the car registration (again, this time limit is spending between 6 months and 1 year driving within one country, depending on the country).

The purchase can be done in the UK by proxy. If you take the vehicle out of the UK immediately (within 2 months) and do not drive it there, you are exempted from VAT tax on your purchase, and you do not have to register it within the UK. So, if you see a commercial opportunity to buy the vehicle in the UK and then register it in Italy, it can be done, provided that the vehicle is transported, rather than driven out. If it is driven out, you would have to register it, so that brings us to step one, which is not useful.

Simply purchasing the vehicle in the UK has no income tax effects. What does have income tax effects is getting the address for registration purposes, because it means you would own / rent a home there, and therefore be a resident.

Regarding the second part of your question, from my experience if you get past the first registration hurdle (and, from my previous answers, there are countries, such as France, where that is not hard), everything else, such as paying local tax for the vehicle, doing the annual check-ups, and renewing the insurance can be done by proxy, or sometimes online.

My opinion would be that the UK can be great to purchase a vehicle, but is impractical for your purposes to register it there. Registration would have to be done in Italy / France or other helpful country.

Cordially,

Dr Ioan-Luca Vlad