Car hire ...

With your statement “for several months” you raise some interesting aspects not directly related to your car .... when you say “several months” do you mean in it’s true form of twelve or more? or do you mean “a few months, but more than three”?

The first thing to consider is that if you intend staying more than three months, you are going to be obliged to obtain Residencia - this is what allows you to stay in the country longer than three months - and this is assuming that UKs exit from EU is delayed by “several months” itself - if UK leaves on 29/3, your plan to rent here for several months will need the kind of advice that is unlikely to be found on this forum (except possibly via Chrisso50 who stays on top of these things!!) but that is simply because it will be a whole new game, and none of us know yet really how it will play out.

But assume the best - UKs departure is delayed (or, please god - totally scrapped) and the situation stays much as it is now; more than three months, and you are needing Residencia, just as a kick off.  Several months stay and you’ll be likely needing to have your car matriculated to Spanish plates, and licenses swapped to Spanish licences.  Matriculating your car will be necessary if your usage goes past your insurance expiry, because no Spanish insurance company will touch you if car is not matriculated.  You could try a UK insurance firm, but if they get wind of the fact you are not “holidaying” and are staying here, then they won’t touch you either.

Again, going by your statement of several months, rental of a vehicle I would suggest will be costlier than simply buying a second-hand car here and using that - despite the fact that second-hand cars here can be quite expensive.

Sorry to be vague - it all really depends on what your definition of “several months” is.

Un saludo, Darío

Many thanks Dario for this valuable advice..

Yes brexit has complicated things somewhat..We are coming out end April to view several rented properties and once we can secure a rent, hopefully the rest will follow Residencia etc..

As you say Dario let's hope they delay brexit..

Cheers,

Evelyn

Well if you are coming out with the intention of obtaining Residencia (or TIE if we’ve gone that route by then), and are intending staying more than I’d guess about 6 months (arbitrary figure - I know, forgive me - I’m just trying to draw on what I’ve heard from others) then you’ll definitely have to start looking at swapping uk licences for Spanish and either matriculating car to Spanish plates or buying a Spanish registered vehicle.

It all really depends on your future intentions I guess. If it is to make Spain your home, then, yes, the above will be necessary.  If this is a holiday retreat for you and your main place of residence is UK, then obviously not.  That being said, as you note, Brexit has messed a lot of things up and as laissez-faire as Spanish authorities CAN be, I have a suspicion that may change post-Brexit

Hi Ruth and welcome,

You are very much on the money with regards cost of matriculation.  One of the biggest costs can be the headlights.  If a car is one that has a switch on the headlights that can shift the dip from left to right, then headlights won’t need changing.  This is not necessarily restricted to newer cars, as I owned once a BMW 528i E39 from 2000 that had that.

If the headlights aren’t switchable, they have to be changed, and it’s not unusual to pay 500 € - 600 € per headlight unit, so you can hit over 1.000,00 € just on cost of headlights; then there’s everything else that may need to be done - so, yes, cost of matriculation of a car can be quite pricey