Oh the joys of having an vehicle on a carnet!
The carnet de passage en douanes to give it it's full title is effectively a customs passport for the vehicle - you used to need one even when you went from UK to Europe, but those days have long gone now for most people.
However - if you take your vehicle outside of the area where there's a free-movement agreement or similar, you're going to have to convince the tax authorities of the country(ies) visited that you're not going to sell or leave the vehicle there, thus avoiding the import duties. So, you need a carnet which basically provides a guarantee that someone will pay in the event that you don't follow the rules - this being the carnet.
It's an impressive-looking document, each page having 5 sections that are systematically filled in and some of which are sent off each time you enter/exit a country as proof of entry/exit. If you don't get an exit stamp from one country and you can't prove that the vehicle is outside of that country - you've got a problem.
Carnets are valid for one year - and here's the issue - our original carnet started in May 12 when the truck landed in Durban - almost one year later and it's approaching the end of its validity. Simple - we'll get an extension from the RAC in UK. How to swap the carnets from one to the other? Lore had it that you got a carnet dated a few days earlier than the old one ran out, drove across a border stamping-out on the old one and then stamping-in on the new one - simple - and what almost all the Germans out here seem to do. BUT - the RAC have decided that they don't like the concept of having 2 carnets running at the same time - so they now only issue a new carnet to start the day after the old one runs out.....so unless you manage to cross a border at exactly midnight on the actual day you're effectively either getting an expired carnet stamped out or a not-yet-valid carnet stamped in!
When I asked the RAC about this, they couldn't give a clear answer - the best they could come up with (verbally, never written) was - oh, just go to a border with the expired old carnet and convince them to stamp it out.....". This didn't fill me with confidence, particularly as the next set of emails addressed to the RAC about this were totoally ignored.
We got the carnet only after much gnashing of teeth, hours spent on the phone trying to get through to the RAC (don't I just love answerphone messaging systems where people don't call you back....) and finally working out that they don't actually look at emails sent in reply to their emails (they have "personal addresses) - they only look at emails sent to the "collective pot"! Anyway, the carnet arrived with about 24 hours spare, so in the end it worked - however still no clear instructions as to how to go about swapping them over, so it was clear that we were "on our own".
Discussing this on various forums and with various travellers here, I got many different proposed solutions (mainly germans asking why I don't register the Mog in Germany to be able to get away from the RAC - they are all amazed at how inflexible the UK system is), but while we were doing the rear portal bearings in Kai's workshop yard a couple of Germans came in and told me where the customs office is in Windhoek, this was later confirmed by Alex and Keira who have kept a MAN truck out here for several years. I decided that I wasn't going to risk anything by going down there and having a chat....
It turned out that the guy in the queue in front of me had done exactly what the RAC had suggested - let his old carnet run out before presenting the old and new for swapping - they refused to stamp either carnet and told him to go away. This means big trouble for them if the can't find a way round the issue. The customs officer took one look at our carnets, checked the engine number and stamped both - all in 5 minutes! Now why the RAC couldn't have suggested doing this is totally beyond me. Hmmmpphh!
So, we now have new rear bearings and a legal carnet - time to do a bit of planning!
Tomorrow I'm going to move to a campsite either near the airport or to one north of Windhoek (where we stayed in October - it's green and shady) while I decide what to do over the next few days.
The carnet de passage en douanes to give it it's full title is effectively a customs passport for the vehicle - you used to need one even when you went from UK to Europe, but those days have long gone now for most people.
However - if you take your vehicle outside of the area where there's a free-movement agreement or similar, you're going to have to convince the tax authorities of the country(ies) visited that you're not going to sell or leave the vehicle there, thus avoiding the import duties. So, you need a carnet which basically provides a guarantee that someone will pay in the event that you don't follow the rules - this being the carnet.
It's an impressive-looking document, each page having 5 sections that are systematically filled in and some of which are sent off each time you enter/exit a country as proof of entry/exit. If you don't get an exit stamp from one country and you can't prove that the vehicle is outside of that country - you've got a problem.
Carnets are valid for one year - and here's the issue - our original carnet started in May 12 when the truck landed in Durban - almost one year later and it's approaching the end of its validity. Simple - we'll get an extension from the RAC in UK. How to swap the carnets from one to the other? Lore had it that you got a carnet dated a few days earlier than the old one ran out, drove across a border stamping-out on the old one and then stamping-in on the new one - simple - and what almost all the Germans out here seem to do. BUT - the RAC have decided that they don't like the concept of having 2 carnets running at the same time - so they now only issue a new carnet to start the day after the old one runs out.....so unless you manage to cross a border at exactly midnight on the actual day you're effectively either getting an expired carnet stamped out or a not-yet-valid carnet stamped in!
When I asked the RAC about this, they couldn't give a clear answer - the best they could come up with (verbally, never written) was - oh, just go to a border with the expired old carnet and convince them to stamp it out.....". This didn't fill me with confidence, particularly as the next set of emails addressed to the RAC about this were totoally ignored.
We got the carnet only after much gnashing of teeth, hours spent on the phone trying to get through to the RAC (don't I just love answerphone messaging systems where people don't call you back....) and finally working out that they don't actually look at emails sent in reply to their emails (they have "personal addresses) - they only look at emails sent to the "collective pot"! Anyway, the carnet arrived with about 24 hours spare, so in the end it worked - however still no clear instructions as to how to go about swapping them over, so it was clear that we were "on our own".
Discussing this on various forums and with various travellers here, I got many different proposed solutions (mainly germans asking why I don't register the Mog in Germany to be able to get away from the RAC - they are all amazed at how inflexible the UK system is), but while we were doing the rear portal bearings in Kai's workshop yard a couple of Germans came in and told me where the customs office is in Windhoek, this was later confirmed by Alex and Keira who have kept a MAN truck out here for several years. I decided that I wasn't going to risk anything by going down there and having a chat....
It turned out that the guy in the queue in front of me had done exactly what the RAC had suggested - let his old carnet run out before presenting the old and new for swapping - they refused to stamp either carnet and told him to go away. This means big trouble for them if the can't find a way round the issue. The customs officer took one look at our carnets, checked the engine number and stamped both - all in 5 minutes! Now why the RAC couldn't have suggested doing this is totally beyond me. Hmmmpphh!
So, we now have new rear bearings and a legal carnet - time to do a bit of planning!
Tomorrow I'm going to move to a campsite either near the airport or to one north of Windhoek (where we stayed in October - it's green and shady) while I decide what to do over the next few days.