30

Hi Don and all,

My husband and I are aussies and swedes, living in Australia, and we also have EU passports. We are travelling to Germany in April/May next year to buy a campervan. But as non EU residents I suppose we will have the same problems with rego and insurance. We have found your information very helpful and will check with the company that has helped you. We have 2 aussie friends currently living and working in Germany. Maybe they can do the same for us.

We are planning to do eastern europe the first year and western europe the next. We will spend 3 summers in Sweden.

31

nswsheila, please post here how it worked out with the German company!

32

Hi rodhale,
Probably too late to respond to your post above but as mentioned in a previous post, we have been "incommunicado" for quite a while owing to medical reasons and a house move from Western Australia to Queensland.(this is why my user name has changed from wopdrn to wopdrnn, a new service provider which meant that Thorn Tree didn't recognise my old username with my new service provider)
Hopefully everything now sorted and we can get back on the road again (our motorhomr is still waiting for us in Frankfurt)
Re your questions above, if you were to purchase a motorhome using the same process that we did, you would need to contact the company that you purchased the motorhome from originally so that they could arrange to have ownership transferred to the new owners.
The reason for this was explained in my original posting ie. Even though I have a legal letter proving my ownership of the vehicle, it is still registered and insured by the company I purchased the vehicle from.
The same will apply to me when I am ready to sell it.
I will need to notify them that I am selling the vehicle and provide them with the new owners details so that they can fix up the registration/insurance side of the business.
In my case this should not be a problem as the people I purchased from said that I can leave it in their yard and they will sell it for me (probably attracting some sort of a commission for them) and then arrange to transfer the money from sale into my bank account in Australia.
This will suit me perfectly as it means that I won't have to hang around in Germany waiting for it to sell and it will also mean that I won't have to "firesale" it so that I can return back to Oz.
Re your question on insurance, as people who have been down this path know, non EU people trying to get insurance is extremely difficult but in my case, no problem as the vehicle is still registered in the Motorhome company's name (which means also that I benefit from their corporate rate).
Finally, re the company that I used (and where my vehicle is currently being stored) because of personal issues mentioned above, I reluctantly posted the contact details of the company I used (using) on 11 Nov 2007 (copy of original post below)

Hi rodhale,
Probably too late to respond to your post above but as mentioned in a previous post, we have been "incommunicado" for quite a while owing to medical reasons and a house move from Western Australia to Queensland.(this is why my user name has changed from wopdrn to wopdrnn, a new service provider which meant that Thorn Tree didn't recognise my old username with my new service provider)
Hopefully everything now sorted and we can get back on the road again (our motorhomr is still waiting for us in Frankfurt)
Re your questions above, if you were to purchase a motorhome using the same process that we did, you would need to contact the company that you purchased the motorhome from originally so that they could arrange to have ownership transferred to the new owners.
The reason for this was explained in my original posting ie. Even though I have a legal letter proving my ownership of the vehicle, it is still registered and insured by the company I purchased the vehicle from.
The same will apply to me when I am ready to sell it.
I will need to notify them that I am selling the vehicle and provide them with the new owners details so that they can fix up the registration/insurance side of the business.
In my case this should not be a problem as the people I purchased from said that I can leave it in their yard and they will sell it for me (probably attracting some sort of a commission for them) and then arrange to transfer the money from sale into my bank account in Australia.
This will suit me perfectly as it means that I won't have to hang around in Germany waiting for it to sell and it will also mean that I won't have to "firesale" it so that I can return back to Oz.
Re your question on insurance, as people who have been down this path know, non EU people trying to get insurance is extremely difficult but in my case, no problem as the vehicle is still registered in the Motorhome company's name (which means also that I benefit from their corporate rate).
Finally, re the company that I used (and where my vehicle is currently being stored)

rodhale, I hope that the above helps and that it is not too late to be of any use to you.
If you need any further assistance , I will try and help.

Hopefully "Happy motorhoming",
wopdrnn (formerly wopdrn)

33

Oops sorry about that!!
In my post above I said that I would post the details of our German motorhome contact but I see that I have only just copied the same posting again.
For those interested, the following was my original post giving the contact details..........

To Ultrask8, rockystone, Vera57, camills and zeggy.
My sincere apologies for not responding to your posts above but due to some medical issues and an extended trip to the Eastern States of Australia, I have been "offline" since August.
As you would have detected from my earlier posts, I was loathe to post the contact details for the motorhome company that sold us our vehicle and instead provided my own e-mail details.
The reason I did this was I felt that it may have been seen by some of our more cynical posters that I was just trying to give a free plug to just another motorhome salesman, hence the the provision of my personal contact details.
However due to possible on-going medical issues and a permanent relocation to another state, coupled with the volume of personal e-mail queries I have received requesting contact details, I have decided to post them here.
They are :-
***Their website :- www.rutenkolk.de***
**Their e-mail address is:- g.rutenkolk@rutenkolk.de**

As I said in an earlier post, their core business is the sale of new motorhomes and cararvans and I think that they only way they come by second hand campers is via people trading up to new (or newer) motorhomes.
From what I have seen in their yard, they do not operate at the "bottom end" of the price market (I think that when I purchased mine 2 to3 years ago it was among the cheaper of the motorhomes they had available at the time (being 13,000 euros), however I am confident that if Gotz (pronounced GERTS) can't help you, he may be able to put you on to somebody else that provides the same type of service for cheaper motorhomes.

If anybody needs any further info on anything else I have posted in this thread, please feel free to e-mail me direct or via this thread however I may not be able to respond immediately for the reasons stated above
Hopefully all of our issues should be out of the way by the next European summer and we will be able to pick up our van in Frankfurt in May and hit the road again for another five or six month stint.

Hope this helps,
Cheers
wopdrnn

34

Hi mattoni,

we have changed our plans after lots of investigation. we are now buying the campervan in frankfurt and will take it to sweden and register it there, as we are still swedish citizens.

cheers
nswsheila

35

So far I've found that the best deals are in the Netherlands, but I'd be interested to have the name of the company in Germany with which you had such a good experience.

36

bonstephen ,
Don't know if you are asking me the question about the German company but if you are their details are contained in my earlier posts.
Their website :- www.rutenkolk.de***
*Their e-mail address is:- g.rutenkolk@rutenkolk.de

Cheers,
wopdrnn

37

bonstephen
i would be interested in hearing about your dutch dealings
regards
TE

38

I am new to this site after searching for more info on the "buying campervan in europe" I found your information fanatstic but as yet I have not been able to find out if you have named the company. What is it???

39

see post #27 and #34

Note that in principle it isn't possible to get a car insured, which means that you cannot get licence plates if you are a non-resident in continental Europe. And even if you could get such an insurance (i.e. in someones name - illegal BTW), the insurance would TYPICALLY not be valid in another country (European or not) for more than a limited period like a typical vacation 81 month - maybe 3 months).

40

Hi Bjoern,
Re your post #41,I have been absent for a while (on holidays) and I just noticed your posting.

Don't know where you got your info from but if you read all of my posting you will have seen that my vehicle is registered (and insured) in the company's name from whom I bought the vehicle!

I hold a legal letter of ownership for the vehicle even though it is not registered in my name.

When (and if) I sell the vehicle I will need to notify the company who the new owner is so that they can arrange transfer of ownership (although it is more likely that I will accept their kind offer to sell it using their resources as they have more access to potential customers)

If the person tha I sell the vehicle to is a non EU resident then they will have the same arrangement that I enjoy with the company that I purchased the vehicle from (ie. the vehicle will continue to be registered in their company's name and they will draw up another legal letter of ownership for the new owners.
Naturally the company that I bought from will continue to insure the vehicle and take out any German "RAC style" car club breakdown memberships, (which I have) on behalf of the new owners if they require it.).

If the new owners are EU residents, then the vehicle will be transferred into their name and they will register the vehicle themselves.

Hope this clears up the confusion.

For Post # 40, smillser,
Don't know if your question on contact details is directed at me , but if it is, see my post # 37 for details on who I purchased my vehicle from.
If not meant for me, then please ignore this .
Cheers,
wopdrnn

41

I assume by the lack of mention that you haven't had to make a claim on the insurance.

It would be interesting to hear how a claim was handled and if that depended much on which country it happened in.

42

Roaminrobyn,
Been "offline" for a few weeks (Xmas holidays) so misse your post!
You are correct and no insurance claim has been necessary (yet).
As my van is still registered under the name of the company that I purchased it from in Germany I don't anticipate that there will be any issues should I ever need to make a claim,
Cheers,
wopdrnn

43

Hi wopdnn, Think I have read all the thread but may have missed what I am about to ask. Are there any countries in Europe or the UK where one can register and insure when you are not a resident.
We have a friend in Germany that has a suitable Motor Home for sale that we along with some other friends are investigating to purchase. Our son is a resident of Norway but to register there would mean importing the unit at very high tax cost. We like the idea of being able to use it and leave it in the north some where. Presume it would be difficult to register a left hand drive vehicle in the UK or Ireland. To ask the original owner (private person) to continue the registration and Insurance would be a big ask and not one we would feel comfortable with not knowing the legal complications in the event of an accident.\
Presume the company you deal with would not want to become involved with a vehicle that they did not sell.
Hope your health improves and that you enjoy Qland.
regards Peter

44

pijhat, The conclusion from the 100s of postings in this forum is that there is nowhere on continental Europe where a non-resident can register and insure a car.
Both the authrities (i.e.) police in case of a traffic violation as well ars the insurance company wants a local adress where they ar epretty sure that they can contact the owner in order to get whatever money they want to claim.
Another thing is that the insurance on a car normally only covers in another country for shorter periods - typically 1-3 months, which is shorten than 99+% of all holidays. It seems that it is possible in the UK.
If you want to "leave" a car in another country, you will have to pay the local car taxes (as you know from Norway) before getting rid of it.