Buying a car to use for holidays

As long as you are not a (permanent) resident you can do with your Brit DL. On the other hand it will be difficult to buy a Spanish reg vehicle w/o a permanent residence.

There is no bar on non residents buying or owning cars but you will need a provable address in Spain.If you own a property the deeds from that will suffice as will a long term rental agreement.
You do NOT need a padron however if you buy from a dealer and want them to transfer the registration for you then commonly they will ask for a TIE or a padron.Absent either of those any gestor should be able to effect a transfer for you.

Thank you that is a great help 

Hi guys, please could you let me know your thoughts on getting a car.

 Is it possible to buy a left hand drive car in the uk, and bring it over.  Or better to buy in Spain? 

Is the car MOT process the same in Spain as it is in the uk? 
Is there any issues we need to be aware of when owning a car in Spain?

Many thanks

Paul

We are not residents & I brought a car several years ago much better then hiring with all the hassle I have had no issues at all, I drive it on a U.K. license, I am thinking about buying the yearly license from the U.K. for Spain but only because I have read that police are finding people I did ask at the post office in the U.K. but they said I didn’t need one but for piece of mind I think I will, I think they are under a £10 

Thank you that is very helpful Mags 

For anything to do with driving in Spain it may help if you have a look at the N332 website.   It is run in collaboration with officers of the Guardia Civil for English speaking people and has an English version of the Spanish equivalent of the Highway Code on it.

Hi Paul

We bought a left hand car from a dealership In Basingstoke, they had a good choice of vehicles available. It was originally from Belgium, they had the registration changed to English and MOT’d it. We drove that down to Spain ( Orihuela Costa) then we paid a company to get registered/ plates changed/ paperwork etc sorted. All quite easy ( if you pay to save on the headache of doing yourself)

This was in October 2020 so you may have to just check on tax situation though when importing a car as obviously all changed from 31/12/20

Happy to provide both garage & company here if that helps

Regards 

Gail

As you can only have a UK vehicle in Spain for 6months did you take it back and forth 6monthly or actually keep it in Spain longer.? Did you take it back for its Mot to keep it legal? 

Regards 

Pauline