Gibraltar Travel Forum

Hi to all,

I have purchased a UK car (the car was in benidorm), and now I can not register the car in Spain due the absurd Spain laws, Could be register the car in gibraltar without being a resident?.

No. You can't (legally at least: who knows whether you could find a corrupt official somewhere?) register a car anywhere without being a resident, including, if you are British, in the UK. If it was, then instead of registering cars in the country they live and use them in, people would register them in the one with the lowest registration charges and taxes - and there would be no cars at all registered in Belgium, for a start! So it is NOT an issue of "absurd Spanish laws", these are exactly the same in other countries - the people you bought the car from are the ones who should have registered the car since they brought it into Spain. I am afraid the law of "caveat emptor" (buyer beware) applies. You made a mistake, which is unfortunate and I am sorry for you, but it doesn't help to blame the country's laws for it.

The laws are not the same, the car is legal in the UK but not in Spain.

Spain is the only country that applies the rules Euro-4 for cars imported (The car was previously imported from Japan to UK).

Of course this particular car is legal in the UK, because it is already registered there (although it might not be as it depends when it was MOT'd, and I am sure it isn't insured in the UK)!
To consider which laws would be equivalent, you have to consider the situation of someone in the UK having bought a SPANISH-registered car that someone had imported there and failed to register in the UK. Another foreigner (your counterpart) who then came and bought that foreign-registered car would, before he could register it in the UK, have to complete the import formalities that the previous owner failed to do! I was not talking about the import rules being the same, which adds to your cost in Spain, but about the principle of a) being required to "import" the car into Spain after a certain period of time (6 months?), which requirement passes to you if not done by the previous owner and b) not being able to nip into another country/territory - be it Spain to Gibraltar or Belgium to UK - to register a car when you are not resident there and the car is not staying in that country.