Clocking cars and importation to Poland

Should've went to Holland instead mate, it's a Mecca for bicycles and most of the time you can get from A-B faster by bike than driving the car. A great country for bike lanes.

Don't think I would like to cycle in Poland, I have witnessed "how courteous" they are on the roads over there, think you would be playing Russian Roulette on a bike.


Sure if he did, he did and if he didn't he didn't. Besides he had silver birch burning on his fire :-)

I had zemeldowanie, i needed it to buy a house, otherwise i wouldn't have bothered. The less the authorities know the better as far as im concerned. Apparently at one point i could have had a pesel, fcuk that....


Damn right bro, cant beat a bit of silver birch for the old fire.

I am cycling everyday here in Warsaw - actually on my good old faithful Dutch Gazelle bike - and I am still alive :)
It is true Polish drivers show a malicious view on anybody not moving around on 4 wheels, but there are a lot of bicycle paths here in Warsaw.

Then technically what you did is illegal. Having residence in Poland requires you to register your car within 30 days of ownership (of course when it's in Poland). So I wouldnt broadcast this fact.. or tell people this is something they can do.

edit: But somehow I get the feeling you dont really care. Pretty cool being a foreigner in a country and not giving a damn about its laws. Was your car right hand drive as well?

To be fair, Poles don't give a damn themselves. There's plenty of UK registered cars where I live - all without valid tax discs, too.

The car was registered to a UK address had full European motor insurance, UK mot, UK road tax, I don't really see what could have been illegal.

I'm sure that in the event of an accident both the Polish police and English insurers would have found something to call you up on. From the Polish side there is the law that foreign cars have to be registered in Poland within a certain period, while UK insurance usually only covers European drives for two weeks from leaving the UK. Both are unenforceable, but if it went to caught and you were asked "when did the car leave the UK, and when did it enter Poland", you'd have to lie, and that's your admission of guilt.

Doesn't bother me at all though. The registration law is as stupid as all the other border-related laws I've experienced in Poland, and all insurance companies are blood-sucking bastards, so if you can get one over on them, good for you.

Ah ha. The lowest common denominator routine. Hey, those Arabs, they're all terrorists right? I met a bum on the street yesterday. Therefore, all Poles are bums. Delph...


I just told you why it's illegal. Did you let your UK insurance company know you were using the car 12 out of 12 months abroad? I'm sure you did. You know they do check Chunnel records to see how long you've been out of country, right? Btw, the car is or was RHD wasn't it? My god. The nerve. Well, at least you decided to live in a crap country like Poland, in Germany you'd have the the city council hounding you within minutes to pay road tax.

a lies not an admission of guilt, I lived in the UK at the same time i lived in Poland.


actually its standard three months European cover as long as the countries within the EU and even the cheap companies offer that.


Polish Police dont give a crap, its an insurance issue.

You can't spend an equal amount of time in both countries (365 doesn't divide by 2), but that's not how the law looks at it; it's how long the car has been out of the UK for. Great if you bring it back every two weeks (or three months. Impressive, that's changed since I last insured a UK car); not so great if you get pranged on the A2 leaving Poland for your yearly MOT run...

I'm not criticising you; this isn't a personal attack. But I wouldn't recommend your course of action to anyone else.

I've never met a Polish driver who actually obeyed all the rules on the road. Have you? And if so, can I meet them?

You know fine well that Poles don't respect rules that aren't enforced.


The problem with trying to impose time limits is proving when the car left the UK.


They don't and can't. Data protection laws are insanely strict in the UK - there's absolutely no way the ferry/tunnel companies would share such records with insurance companies. In fact, if they dared to do such a thing - then they would be in a hell of a lot of trouble.


One of the reasons why Poland is a nice place to live - far less obsession with this sort of thing. As long as the car is insured and the owner of the car has given his permission, they really couldn't care less.


As long as it's not stolen and you give them something that purports to be insurance (along with a driving licence), they're happy.


But if the insurance company doesn't impose any limits on the time spent in the EU, then there's no issue at all. I know someone here who has such cover - the only thing is that it's made very clear that the car must be taxed and MOT'ed at all times.

That's it? The defining rule of being able to drive something with four wheels and an engine on Polish roads is that it can't be stolen and it needs "insurance". Well damn, I guess I'll take this up with Strasborg when they took my dowod rejs. for having my front windows tinted. And for my friend for not having MOT on a UK car even though hey, what does Poland have to do with British MOT? Ok, I'm exaggerating, but Delph..., when you say something like this:


I'd shut the hell up, ok? Try dealing with someone whose car was "insured" but really wasn't when he rearended you. And see how the police reacts. Yea, they don't care. So I guess I shouldn't either and pay for all the damage out of my pocket. Right? Because that's the "Polish way"?


Oh btw, the whole point of insurance is not to satisfy some stupid law. It's when you do cause an accident the insurance company is obliged to cover the damage you caused. There are people who buy OC on cars with German kurzeitkennzeichens and think they can get away with it, and the insurance companies don't mind because they make money. When push comes to shove guess who's forking the bill?


There's a huge difference between the "rules of the road" and having things like liability insurance. Don't confuse them.


Yea, there's this country called France you see, and it doesn't belong to the UK, and it's at the other side of the Chunnel and ferry ports...

why would they hand over car details to UK insurance companies exactly?

What do tints have to do with anything to do with this? Although your friend was desperately unlucky in this case - it's the first time I've heard of anyone getting asked for it when stopped in a foreign plated car.


I really don't get what your point is - we're talking about a UK car that is fully insured. And if the UK car wasn't insured under some arcane technicality, there exists a scheme to pay the third party in this case.

As has already been pointed out to you - UK insurers offer the option of keeping the car abroad for as long as you want.


And you think that French protection laws would allow the exporting of such data to the UK? What you're talking about simply doesn't happen, not least because there's a multitude of ways to leave the UK and a 200 mile unguarded border between the UK and Ireland.


As I said, Poles don't bother with rules that aren't enforced. As you're well aware, the requirement for insurance is enforced in Poland.


I still can't figure out what you're getting at.

I'm also wondering if your negative experiences in Poland are due to obeying far too many laws that the natives don't obey.

3 Questions:

1) How do you prove the car's value? Would a hand written receipt from the seller (if bought privately) at the time of purchase be proof enough?

2) Is the duty (3.8% akczya) on the price I paid or the original " new " price?
3) Where do you get a VAT 25 form from?

I am buying a used LHD car in the UK, registered in the UK,for around £4k, and driving it to Poland when I move there. After reading all the pitfalls of buying a used car in Poland it seems a sensible thing to do !!

I will have the current UK MOT, registration documents showing me as owner but no official letterheaded receipt as the car will be bought privately.

1. Yes. You need a bill of sale made out in "contract-form" a not just a piece of a paper saying "car for 4000 pounds" and you signature, even better if the contract was in both English and Polish, you'd save the hassle of getting that guy translated.

2. Well... the price you wrote down in the bill of sale. However, Customs checks Eurotax to see if the price you put in is too low.

3. Urzad Skarbowy where you are zameldowany.

Good luck. You're going to need it. Seriously.


Just the opposite. I "generally" obey the laws most Poles obey, i.e., I certainly don't do 50kmh in a teren zabudowany, but then I don't fly by goiing 120km/h. What gets me is the ones who don't give a rat's ass to any sense of decency or social functioning when driving, as it's a high-risk situation for all. I've started to brake check the ******** who tail me when I'm flying 150km/h on A4. And hard.

Update 2 years and 3 months later.

I've been in Poland 2 years and three months. I ended up buying a car here, wasn't cheap but is a good car. Apologies for the late reply lol :-)