Not my week!

[Graye]

We are now all revved up for our trip back to the UK. When I brought the trailer here from the UK in October I thought it felt a bit strange for the last 35 miles or so but the tyres weren't flat and I couldn't see a problem. Just to be sure we turned it on it's side (standard practice to look at the tyres on this trailer - it used to be a trailer tent) and discovered an enormous strip of tread missing from one of the tyres. Feeling virtuous I decided to buy two new tyres (in France! I must be mad!) and took the wheels along to the depot. I paid over huge sums to be told everything was now OK, they had fitted new tubeless tyres but had put tubes in, one was the original, the other was new.

Yesterday we made a quick trip to the tip and one tyre was flat when we got home. I took it back to the depot and they told me the valve had failed on the original inner tube. More chunks of money changed hands. So off we went to the tip today, this time with two new tyres, two new inner tubes. What more could go wrong? No more than 3 miles down the road and we have another flat tyre and have to put the rather threadbare spare on at the roadside! I can't see what is wrong with new tyre/tube (other than than the valve has pulled back through the hole in the wheel) and I can't face having an argument in French this afternoon so it willhave to wait until tomorrow.

Firstly I can't believe our bad luck and secondly I'm not feeling very confident about us managing to get the trailer back to North Yorkshire!

[old tree man]

What a pain, nothing worse than being in trouble in a foriegn land, i hope it all turns out well for you, and safe journey back to blighty.
all the best
Russ

[JulieSherris]

Oh, Graye - I hope you get it sorted out ok

Good luck for the journey - you'll soon be back in the land of the eeengleesh though!!

[Thomzo]

Good luck with the journey. Hopefully that's all your bad luck out of the way. (Just make sure you have a spare.)

Cheers
Zoe

[MuddyWitch]

Oh heck

All the best for your journey

MW

[growingthings]

oh dear

hope the trip goes better than the preparations have!

[Graye]

So!

In I went this morning, sword in hand, flags of St George flying, white charger tied up in the carpark and my very best French complaints phrases polished and honed (that bit was easy - I couldn't sleep all night worrying about how we are getting this thing back to the UK). And I was met by...... smiles! Lots of them! And tuts and clucks of concern! Isn't it always the way? They are apparently concerned about the valves in the inner tubes and will order two different ones. I have to take the other wheel back on Friday and collect the one I took in today. In the meantime he suggests we don't use the trailer again. As if we would! It's now firmly on it's side in the orchard and staying that way until it has two wheels on I can be happy about.

Oh well, perhaps we CAN leave at the end of the month after all!

[Millymollymandy]

Gosh I hope you get it sorted!

[Graye]

So now we have two new tyres, two new (different) inner tubes with rubber valves as opposed to the weird right angled metal things and potentially a fully functioning trailer. Gratifyingly no money needed to change hands to reach this point and we were wished a good trip to Spain. Must be the Spanish number plates...

[Millymollymandy]

Glad that's sorted Graye but you need to have the same number plates on your trailer as on your car - unless your car has Spanish plates in which case you should have reregistered your Spanish car as soon as you moved to France! Tis the law!

[Graye]

OH yes, Spanish trailer too! We have Spanish residencia so all legal at the moment!

[Millymollymandy]

But you live in France and therefore you must reregister the foreign car in France asap. You cannot keep driving legally in a foreign registered car. I think you have 3 months from when you arrived in France to do so - not sure of the exact details.

[Graye]

No, truly, we are all legal! We go back to Spain often enough to stay within the rules. We have a Spanish property and residencia so the car is all legal for both countries - and the UK. We don't stay in any of the countries long enough to give those sort of problems. We have a UK registered one too!

[Millymollymandy]

Oh so you are neither resident (tax or otherwise) in either France or the UK? I had no idea.

Because the new rules say that if you are French resident it is illegal for you to drive a foreign registered car in France! Been a discussion on this on a French forum - Uk residents are not allowed to drive their French registered cars in the UK either (the ones they've bought to keep at their holiday homes in France)!

I hadn't realised that you spent most of your year in Spain and were tax resident there! (Also worth noting that what is the law in Spain is not necessarily the law in France or UK).

I can send you a link to the thread on the other forum if you like?

[Graye]

No, not resident (for tax or otherwise) in France - we just have a house here but don't spend enough time in it to become resident. We have been here longer than normal while waiting for our cat's passport but have been in and out of the country constantly during this period.

I've seen the discussion on the French forums but we have had our status double-checked by our (Spanish) lawyer AND accountant and there are no problems. Of course it might change but we will worry about that as we go. We might well go back to full British residency once we sell the French house (the reason we have bought the UK reg car, which will spend most of it's life in the UK) and then sell the Spanish car (easier to fly and hire a car when we are there than driving it down to Andalucia, it's a VERY long way - even given the Spanish fuel prices). Certainly no one in their right mind is selling property in Spain at the moment - the bottom seems to have dropped out of the market. We have some UK taxed income and some Spanish but with double taxation we seem to come out about equal so no problems there either.

It's easy enough when you move from A to B but when you bring in C, keep residences in each country and then start moving around you begin to have to keep on eye on the dates involved.

The bits I worry about are the different rules which are in force in the various countries. Examples are ID needing to be carried in some countries and not others, car documents in the car in some and not others, red triangle and flourescent jacket rules ( one triangle in France, two in Spain, none in the UK) fire extinguisher, spare bulbs and first aid kit ( we have the maximum in each car as I can't remember what applies where) etc. We still have to do a mental double-check every time we go away!

Anyway, our Spanish trailer, which will hopefully be attached to our Spanish car should be fit for the trip - I'm checking out ferries right now! But I'll do another tip run just in case...