UK Vehicle Exporters Terms and Conditions

1. Who we are, and using this website

This website is operated by UK Vehicle Exporters Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 10399100, registered office Penstraze Business Park, Chacewater, Penstraze, Truro, England, TR4 8PN. You can reach us at sales@vehicleexports.co.uk or +44 (0)1872 491409.

The content of this site is provided for general information. We take care to keep it accurate, but:

• Sailing dates are indicative. The schedule is compiled from carriers' own published timetables and refreshed weekly. Dates move. Nothing on the schedule page is a booking, and a sailing must be reconfirmed with us before you rely on it.
• Published rates are approximate. Where a page shows a figure from our rate table it is labelled as approximate. It is a guide to the freight cost on that route, not a quotation, and it does not include the UK-side work listed in section 4.
• Vehicle listings are subject to availability. A vehicle shown on the site may be sold or withdrawn, and specification details are given in good faith from the information available to us.

The text, images, layout and data on this site belong to us or our licensors. You may view and print pages for your own use. You may not republish, sell or systematically extract any part of the site — including the sailing schedule — without our written permission.

2. Quotations and how a contract is formed

An enquiry through this site, by telephone, email or WhatsApp is not a booking. We will give you a written quotation covering the specific vehicle, route and service. A quotation is valid for 14 days unless it says otherwise, and remains subject to space being available on the sailing.

A contract comes into effect when you accept our quotation in writing and we confirm the booking. At that point these terms and the quotation together form the agreement between us. Anything discussed but not written into the quotation is not part of it.

3. Prices and payment

• Prices are quoted in pounds sterling unless we agree otherwise in writing.
• Where we source or buy a vehicle for you, a deposit of £1,000 secures it. The deposit is part of the price, not an extra fee, and if you cancel, section 8 applies to it. This includes a vehicle that a VAT-registered dealer sells to you free of UK VAT for export and invoices to you directly: you pay the dealer for the vehicle, and the deposit counts towards our charges. It is separate from any deposit equal to the VAT that the dealer may take and refund once it holds proof of export.
• Payment is required in cleared funds before the vehicle is loaded, unless the quotation sets out different terms. Where you have paid a deposit, this means the balance of the price. We do not release a vehicle or the export documents against an unpaid invoice.
• We accept bank transfer, which we prefer, and card payments up to £5,000, with no fee on personal debit or credit cards. We do not accept letters of credit, cheques, money orders or cash.
• We are not registered for VAT. We do not add VAT to our charges, issue VAT invoices or reclaim VAT.
• Where a VAT-registered dealer sells you a vehicle free of UK VAT because it is being exported, that is the dealer's zero-rating, not a refund from us, and it depends on the conditions HMRC sets, including evidence that the vehicle left the UK within the required period. If those conditions are not met, VAT becomes payable on the vehicle and you are responsible for it.
• Freight rates, bunker surcharges and port charges are set by carriers and terminals, not by us. If they change between quotation and loading, we will tell you before we proceed and you may cancel under section 8 if you do not accept the revised figure.
• Bank charges on international transfers are yours.

4. What our price includes

Unless the quotation says otherwise, the price we quote covers:

• Loading and lashing the vehicle into the ship
• UK customs export and clearance
• UK port handling charges
• DVLA documentation and export certification
• Export documentation, including the Bill of Lading
• Posting the original export documents from the UK by UPS or DHL
• Shipping the vehicle from the UK to the destination port

Where a country is reached through another country's port, the destination port in this list is that hub port, and the onward leg is not included. Air freight is quoted per job. Where a vehicle goes by air, the quotation sets out what the price covers, and an air waybill takes the place of the Bill of Lading.

5. What it does not include

• Pre-export inspection, where the destination country requires one
• Marine insurance, which we can arrange on container shipments
• Collection of the vehicle in the UK, or delivery at the far end
• The onward leg from a hub port, where the country is reached through another country's port
• All import fees in the destination country — customs duty, VAT or its local equivalent, registration tax, port storage, demurrage and agent's fees

We can add the following to the quotation on request, each priced separately: collection in the UK, marine insurance on a container shipment, a pre-export inspection where the destination country requires one, the onward leg from a hub port, and customs clearance, registration and delivery to your door at the destination through a local agent.

This is the most important part of these terms, so it is worth stating plainly: unless the quotation includes destination services, our price covers the journey only as far as the destination port or airport, or the hub port on a route that goes through one.

Where the quotation does include destination services, we arrange them through a local agent. The quotation sets out what the agent will do and what it costs. Import duty, VAT or its local equivalent, registration tax and fees, port storage and demurrage are always yours as the importer, whoever clears the car. They are set by that country's government and change without notice. Any figure we mention about destination duty is general background, not advice, and must be confirmed with a clearing agent in that country, whether one we arrange or your own, before you commit.

6. Your responsibilities

• Give us accurate information about the vehicle and the consignee. Customs entries are made from what you tell us, and a correction after filing can be expensive.
• Make sure the vehicle is yours to export, with no outstanding finance, and that it is not stolen, subject to a claim, or on an insurance write-off register you have not told us about.
• Present the vehicle in roadworthy, driveable condition for a RoRo sailing, with no more than a quarter tank of fuel and no warning lights that would stop it being driven aboard.
• Do not leave personal effects in a vehicle shipped RoRo. Carriers require it to be empty. Anything left inside travels at your own risk and may be removed, and it can put the whole shipment in breach of the carrier's terms. If you want to ship possessions, use a container.
• Check what your destination country allows before you buy. Age limits, emissions standards and left-hand-drive rules vary and are your responsibility.
• Provide the identity and address documents we need for customs and anti-money-laundering checks.

7. Transit, delays and risk

Once a vehicle is delivered into the carrier's custody, it travels under that carrier's own terms and the Bill of Lading. For air freight the carrier is the airline, and the vehicle travels under the airline's terms and the air waybill, which takes the place of the Bill of Lading. Sailing, flight and arrival dates are estimates given by the carrier. Weather, port congestion, customs inspection, blank sailings and vessel rotation changes all move them, and none of that is within our control.

We will keep you informed and do what we reasonably can to limit the effect of a delay, but we are not liable for loss caused by a sailing or flight running late, being cancelled, or a vessel omitting a port. Where a vehicle is lost or damaged in transit, the claim lies against the carrier or the marine insurer under their terms, and we will help you bring it.

While a vehicle is in our care in the UK, from collection until we hand it to the port or carrier for loading, it is covered by our motor trade insurance.

8. Cancellation

You may cancel before the vehicle is loaded, but you remain responsible for costs we have already incurred on your behalf — a purchase completed at your instruction, transport already carried out, a booking fee the carrier will not refund, storage, or customs work already filed. We will set those out and refund the balance.

If you are a consumer contracting at a distance, you have a statutory right to cancel within 14 days of the contract being made. Where you have asked us to begin work during that period, you may be charged for what has been done up to the point you cancel. This does not affect your other legal rights.

In either case, a deposit is treated like any other payment. We set it against what you owe under this section and refund the rest. We do not keep a deposit as a cancellation fee.

We may cancel if payment is not made when due, if the information you gave us proves materially wrong, or if exporting the vehicle would breach sanctions, export controls or any other law.

9. Our liability

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. For a consumer, nothing here affects your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Subject to that, and except where you are a consumer, our total liability arising out of a shipment is limited to the amount you paid us for it, and we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of use, loss of a resale, or other indirect or consequential loss.

10. Complaints

If something goes wrong, contact us at sales@vehicleexports.co.uk or +44 (0)1872 491409 and give us the chance to put it right. We will acknowledge a complaint within 5 working days and give you a considered answer within 20.

11. General

• We handle your personal data as described in our Privacy Notice, and what the site stores on your device is set out in our Cookie Policy.
• We may update these terms. The version that applies to your shipment is the one in force when your booking was confirmed, and the date at the top of this page shows when it last changed.
• If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
• These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you live elsewhere in the UK, you may bring proceedings in your own courts.