I am enquiring on behalf of a British person who has a holiday home in mainland Spain. He has a British registered car which has been here well over the 30 or 60 days grace which allows residents to avoid import duty. He is not resident in Spain, spends less than 6 months a year here and has an NIE and presumably is on the “padron”. He wants to change the registration plates from British to Spanish. The car is normal model of Mazda, over 15 years old and of little second hand value (but runs well). I have looked at three or four other threads on this forum, but still feel a bit confused.

What we would like to know is
1) the stages you have to go through,
2) the order in which you have to do them and
3) what documentation he needs for each stage.

We are fairly clear on the technical side of the ITV (the headlights have already been changed round, for example).

We have another question. We have been asking various people how long a British car can stay in Spain before it needs to have its plates changed. And the answers we have got are:
a) if the car has been in Spain more than 6 months
b) if the owner has been in Spain more than 6 months
c) if the driver has been in Spain more than 6 months
d) if the car has been driven in Spain for more than 6 months

Does anyone know the correct answer? If you have a reference to the relevant BOE (Bolet?n Oficial del Estado) that would be great too. And does it make any difference if the car is kept off-road?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Take a look here

https://www.gov.uk/living-in-spain#driving-licences-and-vehicles

This is generally accepted as an expensive nightmare and I am not even sure it is possible for a car of that age. There are specialist companys that deal with this - but get the chequebook out.

Thanks for that reference.

They say

If you spend longer than six months of the year in Spain with your UK-registered car, Spanish law says you must register your vehicle with the Spanish authorities.

so it looks like answer (d) in my original post may be the right one (i.e. if the car is in Spain on its own, it can be here indefinitely with British plates).

To be honest I think that is streching the law and its intention - and good luck with convincing the Guardia Civil on that one. But of course the choice is yours. However you will run into MOT/ITV, road tax (IVTM) and probably also insurance problems.

Take a look at here
http://www.thenotebookmadrid.com/moving_to_madrid/formalities/registering_your_vehicle.html