Hello, can I ask some advice, I am new to caravanning after being under canvas for years so don't really know much about cris registration. We recently bought a used caravan but the woman that sold us it, had a bit of paper to do with registration which she said she had never sent off because she couldnt be bothered and because they wanted her to pay and it all seemed a big waste of time to her. Anyway we have emailed cris and paid a fee to reregister it in our names, my question is, what will happen when the last people to own it are not the last recorded owners. I know everything is legit, the people selling it had PLENTY of money, they left their cars reg plate on the caravan and we saw their car, they know we are registering it in our names and have phoned with further info for us, we viewed it at their house etc, but will this all hold up our registration? Its just that we cannot get insurance until it is done? many thanks for any advice.
It wont matter if they are not on the paper work, we bought ours brand new, and it still says previous owners not known, all that matters is the fact that its in your name. and it helps to protect it from those little darlings that like to take things that dont belong to them.
as for insurance caravan club never asked for Cris. Have you tried them.
The caravan club wouldnt insure us untill we were fullly registered with CRIS.As I understand it , its compulsory for you to register with CRIS now. The fee is only a tenner. Your people clearly have alot of money but didnt want to part with any!
If you dont have the documents correct it wont cost you any more money but it will be one hell of a headache. Our experience of CRIS was that they werent very efficient at sorting it out when we didnt have the appropriate docs ( my parents couldnt find the registration document and didnt even remember the necessity to register it!)that caused us months of headache and an un-insured van.
IAs you have the docs, filling them in and sending your tenner! will have been worth not having the sleepless nights! ( your problem would be if they didnt actually own the van- that sounds unlikely given that they had the docs!)
We are in a similar situation. The first owners of our van were registered but the second owner didn't register the change when she bought it as she didn't want to pay them. We are the third owners and sent the paperwork off to Cris as soon as we got it. We were contacted by Cris last week asking for the sellers details, I guess they are trying to confirm what happened to the caravan while it wasn't registered with them.
Cris did tell me when we bought the caravan that registration would take a bit longer in this case as they would need to do some investigations.
We are insured with Caravanguard and it wasn't a problem for them.
I insured my caravan with the Caravan Club the day before I bought it so that I would be covered to drive it home and I sent off the CRiS document and fee a few days later after I'd purchased it.
Most insurance companies (caravan club included) will ask for the CRIS number that is etched into the main windows of the van. However I am not aware that it is a condition of insurance that you are registered with CRIS, but as always you should read the small print. But for the relatively small fee involved (or free if you purchase brand new) it gives you peace of mind that if your van is stolen and recovered the police will be able to obtain the details of the registered keeper relatively quickly.
Talking of small print this is what the caravan club states in their policy document:
Quote:
Should You be unlucky enough to need to claim, the underwriters may request
substantiation of the loss. The Caravan Club therefore recommends that You retain
receipts where possible, particularly for larger items, to assist in the substantiation of
the claim. In addition, if You have a Caravan manufactured since 1992, insurers will
require You to produce the CRIS registration document (where applicable) in the
event of total loss of the Caravan. Never keep registration documents or receipts in the
Caravan, they will make it easier for the thief to dispose of the Caravan should it ever
be stolen! Unquote
I think I will phone the insurance companies and just ask them outright. I have sent all my details to cris, who have emailed me telling me that it will be about 6-8 weeks because of the lack of history, so maybe that will be enough for the insurance companies, that I have started reg process?
Anyway thank you all, someone has suggested to me that I can get my car insurance to cover any accidents caused by my caravan, so I will phone them and sort that out at least.
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Topic: caravan cris registration
