Under EEC law a resident of one EEC country can travel to another and, basically, do anything he can in his home country without hindrance. You can go to Germany from the UK and work, for as long as you like, without hindrance from the German authorities. You can go to France and buy a house, and live out the rest of your life in it, without goverment inteference. You only need a passport and money; free movement of labour and all that.
And under EEC law you can move to Greece and buy a car, just like you can in Spain, Poland, Portugal et al.
It's just not that easy here.
Firstly there is the question of a residents' permit; if you are an EEC citizen you don't need one.
If you want to buy a car, and the registration office is in Preveza, you do need one; no matter that the Greek government has been censured by Brussels over the issue more than once.
We had been told that we may need a permit to register the car, so our first port of call was the Police station, where they are issued. And this is the sequence of events that followed....
1. 1st. visit to the officer who issues permits.
Us. "We want to buy a car. What documents do you need to issue a residents permit?"
Plod. "How long have you been in Greece? Less than 3 months?"
Us. "Yes. Less than 3 months."
Plod. "You don't need one. "
Us. "Are you sure?"
Plod. "Go and see Costa, the lawyer, and ask him. But you don't need one."
2. 1st. visit to Costa, the Lawyer.
Us. "We want to buy a car. Antonis at the police station says that we don't need a residents
permit. Is this correct?"
Costa. "No you don't need a residents permit to buy a car. If someone insists that you do, you
could take your case to the European Court and the outcome would be a formality.
However, it would cost you the price of 5 cars to get the ruling. I will ring the "chief" at
Preveza for you, just to be sure."
There now follows a break of about a week whilst Costa finds time in his busy(?) schedule to make a 2 minute phone call. In the meantime, our seller asks the clerk he has been dealing with at Preveza if we will need a residents permit, and is left in no doubt that we will not get the car registered at this office without one. This is confirmed by Costa a couple of days later, after he has finally spoken with the "chief".
3. 2nd. visit to Antonis (the police officer who issues the permits).
Us. "We need a residents permit to buy a car."
Ant. "You don't need a permit to buy a car. I spoke to the "chief" at Preveza less than 10 days
ago and he told me that it is not necessary."
Us. "Well Costa the lawyer spoke with him, and he said that we do; and more to the point, the
clerks who register the cars say we need one. What do we have to produce to get one."
Ant. (After waving his arms in disgust) "You will need 5 passport photos, your passport, your
Greek tax number, and proof that your income is sufficient to live in Greece; and it must
be translated into Greek."
Us. "Where can we get the information translated?"
Ant. "Costa, the lawyer, will do it for you." (Surprise, surprise).
4. 2nd visit to Costa.
Us. "We need these documents translating into Greek."
Costa. "No problem. It will take about a week, because I'm very busy(?). 50 euros a document."
Aware that a week in Greece can have a lot more than 7 days, the only thing that we could do to speed up the process was to get the photos. A visit to the local photo shop followed, where we discovered that the instant pics only come in fours! As 4 will cost 10 euros, and not willing to pay for 8 when we only need 5, we take a chance that Antonis will not notice that there is one missing.
Have you lost the will to live yet? Imagine how we felt!!!!
3rd. visit to Costa. (10.00am, after a phone call confirms that the documents are ready)
Us. "We have called for our translated documents."
Costa. (Sat at his computer, typing with one finger) "They are not ready yet, come back in 1
hour."
4th. visit to Costa. (Who is sat with a client (?), drinking coffee)
Costa. "I have to deal with this gentleman before I can finish your papers. Give me your phone
number and I will ring you when they are finished."
5th. visit to Costa. (1.00pm. No phone call received, so we rang him)
Costa. "All finished. 50 euros each, please?"
3rd. visit to Antonis.
Us. "Here are all the documents you need, can we have a residents permit, please?"
Ant. "Take a seat."
He then proceeds to give the documents nothing more than a cursory glance, fills in a form (in triplicate) using the details from a passport. He doesn't notice the missing pic!
Ant. "That's all done now. I just need to check on the computer (presumably to confirm that we were not on Interpols' most wanted list), come back at 2.30pm for the permit."
On our fourth trip up the police station stairs, at 2.30pm,we finally got the permit. The following day we finally got the car registered. Our brains were so addled by the whole experience its' first trip, under new ownership, should have been to a mental institution.
If there is an upside to this saga, it's the fact that we have 3 more official stamps to add to our growing collection!!
The downside is that the car isn't big enough to carry the filing cabinet we are going to need if we collect much more official paperwork.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment