When Sara and I bought the apartment one of the things we loved was that we could walk to all the shops we would need, and use public transport for getting around the island, thus avoiding all the hassles of vehicle ownership. Well that didn’t quite work out because as per previous entries you will see that we rode the motorbike bike down here from Scotland.
To compound this change, we have now bought a car!! which just goes to show that as Robert Burns stated; “the best laid plans of mice and men……….”
The process for buying a second hand car in Spain is complicated to say the least. I wont give you chapter and verse but one of the peculiarities is that any fines outstanding whether parking, speeding or whatever stick with the car and not the owner. In other words one could buy a car in good faith and be legally lumbered with debts. There are other things like a vehicle can be registered as a commercial vehicle (this applies to both cars and vans) and as such there are different speed restrictions on main roads. There are also more regular MOT’s for a commercial registered vehicle after it reached ten years old it needs an MOT every six months. Plus lots of other (to us) complicated legislation. Another peculiarity is that road tax is subject to a complicated calculation which also depends on the local area where one lives, but this is a lot less than the UK.
To avoid all the potential pitfalls we decided to buy our first car through a dealer, fully understanding that we would be paying a bit more than a private sale, but the legal onus is on the dealer for a number of the above points and more.
We are having the vehicle changed from commercial to private use and this necessitates the vehicle going back to the MOT station on the 23rd of this month. The dealer is the one who must do this after getting a particular document from Peugeot…………don’t ask because I don’t know the answer. The only thing I know is that we now have a Peugeot Partner Tepee Outdoor and are still puzzling over the difference between our initial perception (no vehicle)and the actual reality (motorbike and car)………………!!!