Southampton Customs Help Please
 

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Hi
Can any one help..... I have just shipped my bike over from Malaysia it arrived in Southampton with no problems, the container with my bike in was then taken from the docks to a warehouse just outside Southampton, and unloaded, where i was able to walk around it and inspect it for any damage so far so good. Now i had opted to do the customs clearance myself as the shipping agent was in Bradford and it would mean I'd be waiting around while my paper work went back and forth up and down the country and as I'm staying 10 minutes from the customs and the warehouse and having crossed many borders around the world i thought this a good idea.
So armed with every scrap of paper i had for the bike i set off, and this is where the problems start. I was told that i can no longer bring a motorcycle in to the country, i had to import it, i asked about the possibility of using my Australian Carnet, no this is no good as its CDP and not an ATA, So i asked is there any other type of temporary import that i could use the answer was NO, i asked why and was told that individuals can no longer import vehicle's including Motorcycles into the UK not even on a temporary basis, this has to be arranged with UK customs before shipping to the UK and must be done by a shipping agent in the country of departure ( i can see that working if you ship back from Africa) I had a word with a local shipping agent he then got in contact with the Southampton customs and was told that because he was not the importer he could not import the bike for me......
So my question is has any one else had this problem, how did you get around it, or could you give me some advice as to what to do next. Cheers Skip

Sounds like a 'mare. As I mentioned to you before, I had to import my Oz bike but as I rode in via Dover, no questions were asked at the port. I even asked an officer at the port whether I needed to do something there but she just waved me on.

In your case, I suspect if you had been out of the country for over a year, you might have been able to avoid paying the customs/duty on it. There is a claim route you can go down if this is the case.

Anyway, I had to do the UK import thing with mine, so had to pay Customs & Excise their pound of flesh plus get an SVA test carried out and apply for registration with DVLA. All in all, I reckon it cost me near enough £600 to do this and that was partly based on customs valuing my bike at only £1600 or so.

Note, my insurance co (Carole Nash) would only give me 30 days insurance cover until I got it registered. Which took about 2 months.

And after all that, some fecker went and stole it...why couldn't they have nicked it while it was still insured but before I shelled out for the registration!!

It's a croc of shit!

To explain: I run a commercial motorcycle shipping service from Australia every year for Aussies wanting to tour the UK & Europe (we also go to NZ & the USA) - we put up to 20 bikes in each shipping container - it's mainly for holiday makers, but occasionally we get RTW travellers - I've just rung my Felixstowe Customs Broker who in turn rang UK customs National Advice Line and spoke to a Mr Mulligan,.... and the answer was that NO CHANGES have been made to the Temporary Importation procedures for any vehicles including motorcycles.

You need to go back and talk to a supervisor, or go higher up the food chain till you find someone with a brain.
As for the Carnet - an ATA Carnet is not the correct Carnet for a touring bike - that's what the CDP Carnet is for so the guy you spoke to knows nothing and shouldn't be dealing with these matters.

HTH

I love this site.

I am not even affected by this issue: I was interested to see what solutions were available and bingo. Great advice!

I hope Skip gets the bike soon...

Crock of shit
 

Hi Pete,

You could try these people :-

National Import Reliefs Unit (NIRU)
Customs House,
Killyhevlin Ind. Est.,
Enniskillin BT74 4EJ
Telephone 028 6632 2298
Fax 028 6632 4018
Email enquiries.niru.rbs@hmce.gov.uk

A nice lady there sorted the mess Heathrow Customs made in 2006 when I brought the baggy back from BA, they temporary imported it when it had only been out of UK for nine months!!!!

Best wishes Alec

Hi all
Can i start by saying thanks for the good advice i received.
After visiting the customs office in Southampton i was given the number of the central customs hub in Manchester they then passed me on to National Import Reliefs Unit in who turn passed me on, after 12 different departments around the country i was passed back to the hub in Manchester.
I was staying just outside of Southampton so i went down to the warehouse where my bike was being stored. I met the owner of the company a very helpful man, Mr David Bell, he got in touch with customs and found out that the problem was that the original shipping agent had not lodged the entry of my bike with customs but had lodged the hole container, some 125 different item's and all of this was lodged with customs as a commercial import,ie the hole container, my bike should have been lodged as a privet temporary import.
The customs emailed the correct paper work over from Manchester and the following day i collected my bike.
Because the port customs down here in Southampton only deal with the search for illegal contraband and not now with the import or export of goods they don't no the correct paperwork or procedure, this is all now handled by the central customs hub in Manchester, who are just plan hard work to deal with, most of what i was told by my own agent and by customs was utter rubbish. In hind sight i think it would have been a lot easier to have got another shipping agent and not tried to do it all myself.....
Thanks to Dave Bell at Air and cargo Southampton.:thumbup1:
Cheers Skip