HOW TO BUY A CAR IN THE UK

Before our trip, Jack looked everywhere and couldn’t really find any recent guides for Australian’s wanting to buy and register a car in the United Kingdom. So we decided to collate what we found and put it all in a logical order in case anyone was wanting to do the same in the future. Please feel free to contact me if you need any clarification on the below.

Here is a simple step by step guide of how we bought our beloved Peggy.

NOTE: UK residency isn’t required to buy a vehicle, however, you do need a UK address for the new rego papers to be sent to. We are lucky enough to have family in London, but you could use a friends address for example. We aren’t sure of the process if you don’t have any contacts in the UK.

1. Find a car / van / whatever and contact the seller. We used www.gumtree.com.
   
2. If committed to the purchase, arrange insurance starting on the arranged pickup date.
   • We used Herts. Only insurer we found that would cover us as non-residents and non-citizens.
   • Just like at home, there are three options of cover with third-party being the minimum requirement to register.
3. Purchase vehicle
   • ATMs here only let you withdraw £250-500 at a time, in £10 and £20 notes. Gets old fast.
   • The exchange rates suck at the ATMs.
   • Think about bringing the bulk of the purchase amount in cash.
4. Obtain the V5C/2 portion of the rego papers.
   • Looks like this:

     

5. Request the seller lodges their notice of disposal online via the DVLA (think RMS in Australia). This will trigger new rego papers to be sent to your specified address (ie. why you need a UK address)
6. Tax your vehicle
   • Similar to paying rego in Australia – paid annually and sucks.
   • This can be done either online via the DVLA website (we had problems processing payment on the website because of our Australian bank cards, plus their website is shit)
   • Alternatively, take the V5C/2 form to the nearest Post Office which is what we ended up doing (6 or 12 month options available).
7. You can check if your tax has been applied here.
8. You can drive the car without the new rego papers, as long as you keep your copy of the V5C/2 form handy.

Once the new rego papers have been received in the post (can take up to 4 weeks), you are right to go!