UK Driving License

biddy123

Registered User
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Just heard that if a no deal brexit goes ahead, UK licenses wont be valid in Ireland. I have a UK full drivers license for years, and don't want to give it up unless I have to. Has anyone changed theirs yet?
 
What address do you have on the UK licence?
I changed to an Irish licence in 2011 after discovering I shouldn't be using my UK one with an address I hadn't lived at for decades.
 
My uk address is on the licence, and was told when we moved home 14/15 years ago to write in my Irish address on it.
 
It's coming from the National Driving Licence Service.

I see that but I would have thought all the UK licence holders in ireland would have been contacted by their insurance companies, as there will be a hell of a lot of illegally insured drivers out there if this fact is true.
 
It is your responsibility ensure you have a valid driving license, the insurance companies are not you minder.

There are plenty of 'facts ' being bandied about over brexit. As someone already said, money racket springs to mind.
Surely insurance companies should ensure whoever they are insuring is legal? No?
 
People should wait and see what happens before wasting their money. There already talks of delaying Brexit by two years so people really need to calm down.
 
I work in an optometrist clinic near a ndls office. It has been noticeably busier with people coming in to confirm their vision is good enough to drive to convert their Uk licence to an Irish one.
 
Surely insurance companies should ensure whoever they are insuring is legal? No?

Read your policy, you will find that it is your responsibility to ensure you meet the licence requirements, just as it is your responsibility to disclose any pertinent information even of not asked. And in the case of car insurance, I believe you are covered if you ever held a valid licence, so they are even less concerned about it than you think.

Somewhere I can a cross a comment from a German policeman on an expat forum concerning license validity, which is a good rule of thumb: "If your licensing authority does not allow you to enter your current address as the address for your licence, then it is very unlike that it is valid and if stopped in the EU, you are like to face a fine of some sort, because it is usually a basic requirement of the authority that they can contact you at the address given for your licence."
 
Not sure how long ago it was introduced, 2015 I think, but UK licences are no longer valid if the holder does not reside at the address specified. It's a £1,000 fine if found driving on a licence with an out of date address in the UK, here, the licence could be assumed as invalid, thus voiding your insurance.
 
I see that but I would have thought all the UK licence holders in ireland would have been contacted by their insurance companies, as there will be a hell of a lot of illegally insured drivers out there if this fact is true.
If there is a material change affecting the insured person (i.e. their licence becomes invalid) they have a fiduciary duty to inform their insurance company.

The insurance companies seem to be more interested in Irish drivers driving in the UK and providing green cards to them.


https://www.axa.ie/other/green-card/
 
Hang onto your English licence 'till you're told otherwise.

You won’t be told, it’s your responsibility to ensure you have the appropriate driving license and sense the address on the license is invalid in the first place, no one could contact them in any case. Dumb advice.
 
I don't know anything about insurance but I would advise anyone swapping their UK licence for an Irish one to check if they are entitled to the same class of licence. I know somebody who changed their licence abut 7 years ago and the person involved had a license that covered driving trucks in the Uk but he only got a basic licence to drive cars in return
 
I don't know anything about insurance but I would advise anyone swapping their UK licence for an Irish one to check if they are entitled to the same class of licence. I know somebody who changed their licence abut 7 years ago and the person involved had a license that covered driving trucks in the Uk but he only got a basic licence to drive cars in return
From the link I posted above.
In such a case the driver will have all valid licence categories on their driver licence included on the Irish licence. There are some limited exceptions where what are known as national licences categories cannot be transferred to the Irish licence. You may need to speak to the DVLA to find out if you have any national categories on your UK licence.
 
Just heard that if a no deal brexit goes ahead, UK licenses wont be valid in Ireland. I have a UK full drivers license for years, and don't want to give it up unless I have to. Has anyone changed theirs yet?
I thought a foreign licence was only valid for the first six months of residency in a new country?
A friend of mine moved to The Netherlands and had been driving on an Irish licence for years. He happened to be asked for his licence at a police checkpoint one day on which he produced his Irish licence. They asked him how he’d been lining in the Netherlands and he said over three years. They informed him that he’d been driving illegally and with no insurance for over 2.5 years. They took his details and postponed prosecution for a few weeks, giving him time to get a valid license and insurance. He did this, brought it to the police station, so then shelved his prosecution.
Ignorance is no excuse!
 
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