So I bought the car. Paid €4k. Did not expect to be the owner of a Fiat Punta, but that’s the joy of movement. Movement stresses systems and devices, stuff breaks quicker and needs to be replaced, in the end making progress quicker. The whole infernal aging machine is sped up and at times feels like it is going to spin off into uncontrollable disaster, but you hang on and hang in. The now previous owner of the car spoke English pretty well, well enough for us to conduct our transaction in English. I contacted her initially via the leboncoin buy/sell website’s own messaging service. She came with her boyfriend and I took the car for a wee spin. Next day we agreed a price, €4k. The website offered its own secured payment service, with monies held in escrow until deal finalised, but the owner didn’t want to go down that path. She called me to say her boyfriend had done some research, and that users had reported difficulties getting their money out of the process. So we were going on old fashioned trust, pay, and pray. Once I transferred half of the money she gave me the registration document, the carte grise, as a step in the transfer process. Not sure what legal value it had, but it made me feel better and I completed the second half of the transfer yesterday. She came with the car, we filled in a sales certificate, form cerfa 15776, two copies one for each of us, she nullified the existing ownership certificate by putting cross lines through it, and voila the deed was done. I have one month to register the car with local authorities. It is also a necessary condition that a road worthiness inspection was carried out within 6 months of the sale. She had had a technical control, as it’s called here, on March 1, so all clear. Next step insurance.
Since yesterday I’ve been working on the insurance. I have agreed to pay €488 or so for 3rd party fire and theft and breakdown assist that kicks in at a distance of 30km from home. My ‘insurance partner’ is AXA international, a division within AXA that deals with non French speakers seeking French car insurance. Another branch of AXA, this time the local office in Pezenas, near where we will be living, offered me about the same, this time in French. They also tried to sell me legal cover in case of legal entanglements. I passed on that one. They incorporated my Irish no-claims status into their calculations. No claims entitlements run over a 13 year period here to get to the full 50% reduction. I had seven years so get 28% off. To get insurance I need a French address, an EU driving license, and car details from the carte grise, the registration.
Correction: the registration is not done at an office but online at the Agence nationale des titres sécurisés (ANTS). To get access to ANTS I need a French ID such as tax number, or health insurance, or verified postal address. For the verified postal address, I need to download the app with a French telephone number, authenticate the app, register my physical address via the app, then have a postal worker come validate the address. I was unable to authenticate the app on first attempt, because, although I have a French mobile number, it does not come with any data, only calls and text, so for data I am using my Irish SIM, and I think that caused the authentication to fail. I will try again later from the house next door which has wifi. If that doesn’t work there are companies who will register the vehicle for you, for a price. Well, I tried again but my postal identify efforts failed as it requires an official French ID of some sort, such as a driver’s license or passport. It’s the classic you need an ID to get an ID conundrum that the new arrival often faces. I remember back in the day, way back, when you’d get a credit card, destroy it, and use the basis of the credit score for the unused card to get a better credit card. The knack was getting the first card. During my google searches for information on process, I came across an English magazine for UK migrants living in France. It quoted a report saying that the move of government services online had increased the difficulty for non-French people to obtain said services, due I expect to the kind of issues I am running into. As always if you have money to throw at the problem…
Today, I engaged the services of a company, eplaque.fr , to carry out the registration. Cost of registration, including their handling fee, €159.66 – which considering there is no annual road tax, is not so bad.
Here is the paperwork they requested:
- Carte Grise (existing registration card)
- Serf 15776, cert filled in by old owner and myself to mark transaction.
- Proof of insurance
- Proof of address in France
- Driving license
- Passport
- Technical Control (NCT/MOT equivalent, needs to be completed within last six months).
I added my wife’s name to the registration, in addition to my own, as I want there to be a paper trail of her existence. That may assist further down the line when needing to provide proof for whatever administrative task, yet unforeseen, that we may need to engage with.
Eplaque.fr got back to me to say that my proof of address was not acceptable. Now working on a plan B, which is to have the electricity contract at our new about be under my name. The good old utility bill as proof of residence. The also got back to me to say that the previous owner had incorrectly input my name when cancelling her registration. Cost of correction, €50
As a new wrinkle in my new life, my new car is flashing an oil change warning light. Don’t you just love second hand cars! The previous owner had give me the number for her mechanic and I called him, making a reservation for tomorrow. Killing two cars in one month would start to look like carelessness.
Got the car seen to today by a very pleasant young gentleman. Cost of oil change, oil filter change and running light bulb replacement €200. Garages ain’t cheap in the land of lavender.
I also got my electricity contract with EDF. I was given a telephone number and an identifying number by the owners. The number was for the EDF English helpline and the number identified their contract with EDF. It was on the second day of waiting on line for in total probably 2 hours or so that a very pleasant and capable person, a lady, set up my contract. She was also kind enough to send me a pdf of the contract which I forwarded to my car registering company, Eplaque. I had confirmed with them that an electricity contract in my name would be sufficient and am now waiting on implementation that it be so.
Prix Du Jour
Fiat Punto 2010 €4000
Car insurance €488
Car Reg via 3rd party. €159.66
Cost of name correction on ANTS system. €50
Oil change/oil filter change €200