Issues with Motor Tax Office - moved to UK, imported car, told MTO in Ireland but now issues

I moved to UK in April. I finally managed to import my Irish car to the UK in August, through an import company, and with a lot of hassle.

My car tax in Ireland was up at the end of August. There was nothing online to cover how to notify them about my car being exported. I emailed them saying the car had been exported, the DVLA had given me a new document on 17th August, but same VIN number, and gave them details of my old Irish number plate and new UK plate. After explaining all this, I received an email back from Motor Tax in Ireland asking me to specify which category my query fell into - motor tax, car off the road or other. I emailed them back again and said that it fell into the category of other, but that I had already explained in previous email about my car being exported to the UK and needing to notify them, and explained the situation again. I then received an email stating that I should have notified them before the car was exported, and I needed to give them the original Irish registration cert with this notification.

There is, or at least I cannot find anything online about how to notify them that a car is being exported. In any case, it was quite a difficult process to import the car to the UK, and I wasn't sure until it was actually registered that it would go through.

Now they are saying that I can't notify them that my car has been exported, and I am still liable for the car in Ireland, for paying motor tax etc. Can anyone advise on this? Has anyone gone through this process? Should I call into my local motor tax office when I am home on hols next week to explain the situation again?

I would expect that a Clerical Officer in any of the Co. Co. motor tax offices wouldn't have a clue about this to be honest. As you say there's nothing to be easily found online about this process. I imagine it's quite unusual.

Is the email address you've been corresponding with motortax@transport.gov.ie ? This is the email for Driver and Vehicle Computer Services in Shannon.

If not I would email that address from scratch and simply explain that I've exported my previously Irish registered car to the UK due to moving there. I'd attach scanned copies of the Irish VRC and the new UK document, ensuring the VIN (chassis no.) is visible on both.

I would then simply state that as the vehicle is no longer registered in Ireland I'm no longer liable for motor tax in respect of it, and ask what is further required of me.

Is this the relevant process?

I obviously need to up my internet search game @ClubMan . Although I find it weird that a simple Google search didn't show up relevant results immediately.

I just found the relevant details also on

I would have thought that a search on www.motortax.ie would have been your first port of call?!

Zobeda said:

I obviously need to up my internet search game @ClubMan . Although I find it weird that a simple Google search didn't show up relevant results immediately.

I just found the relevant details also on

Motor Tax Online

www.motortax.ie

Click to expand...

That link no longer works as it must've been tied to your session which has since expired. I tried the Motor Tax website earlier and it seemed to be offline though so maybe there are issues with their site today? The best that I could find were the two County Council links. I just put "Ireland export vehicle" into Google.

Odd. I didn't have to sign in to find it.

The relevant info. is to be found by clicking into the "Change of Vehicle Details / Status " tab on the www.motortax.ie homepage.

As the OP didn't transfer ownership when exporting, and indeed may return to this jurisdiction and bring it back (from previous posts I've read) I think I would still email the address in my 1st post on this thread and outline what's happened to date.

The instructions seem to only reference permanent export situations.

Zobeda said:

The instructions seem to only reference permanent export situations.

Click to expand...

There is no alternative to the permanent export process. The OP would need to go through the whole import and registration process again should they choose to bring it back to Ireland in the future. It likely would have made more sense to sell it here prior to moving, but too late for that now.