Jon,
I decided not to register mine but put it on a site permanently.
It has been there for 5 years.
A friend of mine registered his Bailey and did a write up that can be found at the link below.
http://www.totalfrance.com/france/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17044
HTH.
Jon,
I cannot get the link to work from this form but I have pasted the body of the post below.
Posted by malebino,
Time for celebrations. Yesterday we picked up our carte gris from the Prefecture for our UK Bailey Senator caravan. Then hot footed it down to Carrefour for our number plate. So might just get a bit of use out of the van this summer after all.
It hasn't been too bad an experience and basically has taken us 3 months to achieve. Before we came to France end of 2005 we had already been in touch with Alko and obtained a pile of information from them concerning the chassis and braking systems and the towing head. Then beginning of May this year when we seriously thought about starting the re-registration process we were fortunate enough to be able to talk to Bones for a couple of hours re his experience of the process. So after changing the UK electrical sockets to French ones we contacted the Bureau Veritas in the middle of May and the man eventually came out to our house to do his inspection beginning of June. He was here for 2 hours and at the end he asked us to put more ventilation in the cupboard which contained the gas taps and also to change the gas regulator to the new Euro standard one (caravan is a Year 2000 model) but was otherwise happy with the van and issued the certificate there and then. We hadn't given any thought to the gas (apart from changing to French gas bottles and regulators) as Keith (Bones) hadn't mentioned this - but during a subsequent conversation with him it transpired that his caravan was a newer model than ours and already had the new Euro regulator fitted.
So armed with this certificate and all other pieces of paper we could think of (neatly filed in plastic pockets in a folder) we went to the DRIRE office in Tours. The lady in the office there was very helpful and gave us a form to fill in. Must confess this form was horrendous - apart from not understanding all of the questions on it language wise - we found it difficult to understand technical wise as well. So having sat in the car outside the office for 30 minutes trying to complete it, we then went back in and asked for her assistance which she willingly provided. She then took this form and the rest of our papers, asked us to get the caravan weighed with and without the car, and on receipt of the weight tickets said she would submit the file to the Technicians.
We eventually got an appointment 27th July to take the caravan to Chateauroux for the inspection. The gentleman there was very nice, spoke a little English to go with our French, and made a very thorough examination of the chassis, towing head, etc, checking that all the numbers stamped on them conformed to the info we had provided from Alko. He checked lights as well and asked us to get the caravan weighed again as his colleague in Tours had asked us get the wrong weights - he wanted nose weight, and because ours is a twin axle he also wanted the weights of both axles. He said everything was fine but there was just one thing he wanted to check with his "Chef". Apparently in France a trailer over 6m in length should have side lights at waist height approx 1m in from the rear. Our caravan is over 6m in length, doesn't have these lights but does have reflectors down both sides of the van. He thought these would be OK but had to check first. We had the van re-weighed, scanned in the ticket and sent it to him via e-mail and approx 10 days later had an e-mail from him saying everything was OK (we didn't need to change the reflectors for lights) and the paperwork would be sent off to the Prefecture in Chateauroux the next day and after a few days we could go there and pick up the carte gris. The other document we needed at the Prefecture was a completed Demand pour Immatriculation (is that what it is called? - anyway its the same form which you would complete for re-registration of your car), passport for proof of identity and EDF bill as proof of domicile.
Cost of the process was paperwork from Alko - free, Bureau Veritas 292 euros, DRIRE 86 euros, weighbridge - free, Carte Gris 46 euros, number plate 13 euros plus fuel running around, patience and time. So for less than 500 euros our UK caravan which suits us down to the ground is now legally French - cheap at half the price we would say and well worth the time and effort.
Apologies for the length of this post but we are over the moon with the result and would like once again to thank Bones for his initial guidance.
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