Relocating to Brittany

[Mame]

We are Brits at present living in Spain. We have residencia, Spanish reg car and Spanish driving licences. Will it be a big problem changing over.
Do we have to import the car ? do we have a certain length of time to do all this
Maureen

[Bevdeforges]

Hi and welcome (again) to the forum. (I left you a note over by your introduction before I saw you had posted here.)

OK, as EU nationals, you won't need a carte de séjour in France - and in fact, some prefectures will not issue you with one, so you'll probably want to keep your passports up to date should you need i.d. (Though I've never been asked for i.d. other than when writing a cheque - which I only ever rarely do nowadays.)

As residents you will need to change your car registration, and get French auto insurance. (Technically you should be able to buy car insurance anywhere in the EU, but in France you need a little paper to stick in the windshield showing you're insured. Much easier to just get your insurance in France so you have the little paper.) Legally, you need to make the changes once you have "declared" your residence in France. Practically speaking, you usually have a few months to attend to all the various changes.

You are supposed to be able to use your EU licenses in France with no problem, however for convenience's sake you may want to swap off your Spanish licenses for French ones - which should make things easier should you have to show your license for any reason.

The local préfecture should be able to handle all the paperwork, though it's not a bad idea to stop in at your local mairie (town hall) to ask first. I've found the mairie people like having the chance to give you all the information, plus they may be able to tell you if there is a sous-prefecture nearby that can handle things quicker. It really pays off to get to know the clerks at the local mairie.
Cheers,
Bev

[giantpanda]

Originally Posted by Mame

We are Brits at present living in Spain. We have residencia, Spanish reg car and Spanish driving licences. Will it be a big problem changing over.
Do we have to import the car ? do we have a certain length of time to do all this
Maureen

Hi!

You will have to reregister the car. It may mean a " certificat de conformité ".
Ask the Sous-Préfecture, what documents you have to bring.

For the licence, there is no immediate necessity to get a French licence.
However if you get fined, they will give you 4 weeks to get a French licence.
Best is to do it at a convenient time (Sous-Prefecture, or Prefecture ).


See here the procedure:

Moteur de recherche service-public.fr : résultats de la recherche

Now I suggest you check your Health situation.

If one of you can bring an E121 ( you have a State pension ) then no problem.
If you can bring an E106 ( you have been working ), then you are covered max. 2 years after stopping to work.

There is a problem between the 2, because then you have to bring a private Health Insurance with can costs anything above Euro 3500 ( equivalent to the French Health CMU ) per person.

Yours,

giantpanda

[Mame]

Thank you both. As to the health thing we are in receipt of state pension so not a problem there.