Paphos Life

I second what JB has said. I had English neighbours who owned a holiday house. For years they came and went, their car stayed in their car port when they weren’t here. They had bought it in Paphos and used it every time that they came over. They have now sold both house and car having decded to leave the island.
No problems.

No need for any doomsday type of replies.

De

glang3000 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:15 pm It's one of those typical Cyprus things, I have had a holiday home since 1992 in Cyprus and am on my 4th car in Cyprus, if you buy the car privately and register it through citizens advice, no problem, if you try going to the ministry of transport office on the Polis road they say you have to be a Cyprus citizen, no yellow sli, no log book.
If you buy it from a garage, no problem, they can register it.
I did check with the EU and it turns out that legally you have to be a Cyprus resident to own a car in Cyprus, they told me it was the same in Germany but believe me it is easy to own one without living there just stay away from the transport office. Odd I know.

That might explain it. I registered mine at the ministry of transport. Didn´t even know that I could have done it elsewhere.

In Germany you have to be a resident. I´m 100% sure of that because you can´t register a vehicle just with a passport. You need either an ID card (German ID cards state your residence status) or a passport plus a confirmation of the municipality that you´re a resident. Plus you have to have a SEPA bank account (maybe even a German one - not sure) they can debit the road tax from. There is no legal way of having a car registered in your name long-term (i. e. unless you claim you want to export it) without being a resident. If you had a car registered in your name without residing in Germany I can only imagine that you left the country without updating your residence status. Which could be a big problem should you want to move there again as it is mandatory for all residents to have health insurance (which isn´t exactly free). If you didn´t update your residence status you´ll have to retroeffectively have to pay health insurance premiums for all those years you were officially a resident even though de facto you may not have been. I read stories of people who had to pay 5 digit sums. So should your situation be as I was speculating you should be careful.

glang3000 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:15 pm It's one of those typical Cyprus things, I have had a holiday home since 1992 in Cyprus and am on my 4th car in Cyprus, if you buy the car privately and register it through citizens advice, no problem, if you try going to the ministry of transport office on the Polis road they say you have to be a Cyprus citizen, no yellow sli, no log book.
If you buy it from a garage, no problem, they can register it.
I did check with the EU and it turns out that legally you have to be a Cyprus resident to own a car in Cyprus, they told me it was the same in Germany but believe me it is easy to own one without living there just stay away from the transport office. Odd I know.

I was after the legal version....thanks

WHL wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:04 pm I was after the legal version....thanks

Well, we bought our first car on a V97 plate (remember them??) duty free; then in about 2000 (?) we swapped to a duty paid car (with a HEM plate) .... so it looks like we've been owning illegally for coming up to 18 years now!

You forgot to mention, James, that over that 18 year period, you have also paid CyGov loads of dosh in Road Tax and MOT- not to mention continuous Insurance, in order to make your car 100% street legal...

PaphosAL wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:26 am You forgot to mention, James, that over that 18 year period, you have also paid CyGov loads of dosh in Road Tax and MOT- not to mention continuous Insurance, in order to make your car 100% street legal...

Oh yes ... that reminds me .... pay the road tax ...

(Or should I be like MG and not pay till the last possible millisecond??? )

Just paid ours. Last year I left it too late and got charged more. Interesting to know our car is not legal. It was registered by the garage at their address, so I wonder how I would go about changing the address on the log book.
I know when we bought our car it worked out cheaper owning than hiring every time we came over. We suspend our car insurance when we are in the UK. At the time, our car was a lot cheaper in Cyprus than in the UK. Plus, MOTs are only every two years and, because of the low mileage we do, they become part of our major service.

Anarita John wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:37 pm We suspend our car insurance when we are in the UK.

Is that possible? And legal without deregistering the car?

It is suspended but still insured for fire and theft. We opt for this, just in case, but could fully suspend it. Of course it must be legal, it is done through Atlantic Insurance. I suppose if the car was parked up on a public highway for the time we were away, it would need insurance, but surely not on a private driveway.
When we come over this week, we will email Joanne at Atlantic for our car to be insured from the day we land. She will email us back and say she has done this and then, on the first full day we are over, we will drop into Atlantic and pick up our Certificate of Insurance.

You can suspend your insurance for up to 8 months with Atlantic, every year, and get a full credit against next years insurance provided you do not have an accident in that year.

As John says you can fully suspend or keep fire and theft and the car should be kept on private property, any field will do I suppose.

I have been with Atlantic for the last 26 years, whilst illegally owning my 4 cars and can highly recommend them.

Gary,

glang3000 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:30 pm I have been with Atlantic for the last 26 years, whilst illegally owning my 4 cars and can highly recommend them.

OK = you win

We've only been with them for about 20 years whilst illegally owning two cars!

Anarita John wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:37 pm Just paid ours. Last year I left it too late and got charged more. Interesting to know our car is not legal. It was registered by the garage at their address, so I wonder how I would go about changing the address on the log book.
I know when we bought our car it worked out cheaper owning than hiring every time we came over. We suspend our car insurance when we are in the UK. At the time, our car was a lot cheaper in Cyprus than in the UK. Plus, MOTs are only every two years and, because of the low mileage we do, they become part of our major service.

Surely you have to have any car you own registered at your home address? how do the Police serve you with tickets/accident etc?