Certificate of Conformity

[Juliec1]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first posting on this forum, so I apologise in advance if I am repeating a problem that has already been dealt with.

We bought our first caravan, a 2004 Ace Jubilee Diplomat in March 2006. As we live in France, the first thing that we had to do was to get the caravan registered, as in France the caravan has to have it's own registration number. When we approached Swift Group, we were told that we would need to buy an Homologisation Pack which would cost £117.50. We paid the money, waited for two months for the papers to arrive and duly registered the caravan with no problems. Although we did notice that the only piece of paper that the examiners appeared to be interested in was the Attestation de Conformite that is written in french at the front of the folder and contains the chassis number.

We have now decided to buy a brand new Ace Jubilee Envoy. Surely, we thought, they won't expect us to have to buy another Homologisation Pack for a new caravan? Think again!

I have phoned both Bailey and Lunar and they do not charge for any of the necessary paperwork and their customer care department were both helpful and pleasant, which was not the case with the Swift Group.

I wish now that we had not ordered the new Ace and 'voted with our cheque book' and gone to one of the other manufacturers.

Has anyone else had any similar experience or could anyone offer any advice?

Many thanks,

Julie

 

[Lutz]

Very interesting. It is really rather steep for the Swift Group to charge so much. As details have to be retrieved from the archives, it is understandable for it not to be for free and it's a credit to Bailey and Lunar that they show so much goodwill to their customers but

 

[Val & Frank]

Hi Julie

If your a member of the Caravan Club give them a ring and ask for advice, I'm sure they would be able to help you.

Val & Frank

 

[Juliec1]

Thank you for your responses. Unfortunately,because we live in France, we are not members of the Caravan Club.

I have had a further e-mail from Swift today saying that the only way to get the Certificate of Conformity is to buy the Homolisation pack which costs

 

[geoffh]

Julie

We have a new lunar and are moving to brittany the Homologisation Pack you have might be expensive but the free info pack from lunar recommends having you caravan inspected.

I hope this is not the case

Who have you got your van insured with?

Geoff

 

[BeemerMal]

Our last caravan came from this caravan Group and I found dealing with them to get a confirmed delivery date was a nightmare. I don't think they understand what 'customer service' is.

We ordered our caravan in September for expected February delivery. They decided to change the build schedule for our chosen model, to March delivery, then April, we finally took delivery in May. All I can say is that they were far from Swift! Our next van will not be one of theirs, purely as a point of principle!

 

[Juliec1]

Julie

We have a new lunar and are moving to brittany the Homologisation Pack you have might be expensive but the free info pack from lunar recommends having you caravan inspected.

I hope this is not the case

Who have you got your van insured with?

Geoff

When moving to France, if your caravan is over 750kg, you have to register the caravan independently. In other words, the caravan has to have a separate registration number. We have found that peoples experiences are different depending which department they live in and all I can tell you is our experiences in Manche, Normandy. Here, the caravan has to be manufactured in 2000, or later, because the chassis before this year didn't conform to new european legislation. You need a Certificate of Conformity from the manufacturer. You then need to go to your nearest prefecture and tell them that you want a form to obtain a Carte Gris (registration). The form is sent to DRIRE who will contact you for an appointment to examine your caravan. In our case, the examiner only appeared to be interested in the chassis number. This costs around 50_. The certificate is sent to you and then you go back to the prefecture and get a Carte Gris with the new registration number. The Carte Gris costs about another 50_. The only thing left to do then is to get new plates made up. The whole process only took about 2 weeks, although we had to wait 8 weeks for Swift to send their paperwork.

As far as insurance is concerned, we are insured at the moment with AXA, but we have friends with caravans who are insured with various other companies. Caravans and motorhomes are very popular here in France and therefore insuring your van should not be a problem.

As I said at the beginning this is only our experience. We are in the process of selling our house to move to Bretagne, where we will have to re-register both our car and caravan. We hope that won't be a different story!

Julie