Thread: Importing to Aus

Originally Posted by Psimpson7

I used Karman shipping and can't rate them highly enough. They were excellent. I also filled it with tons of stuff!

I put an estimated value on my car for insurance on the way, but customs valued it again when it landed. they valued it at about 1/2 what it was actually worth, (and less than my valuation)

If you do put on a value, I certainly wouldn't put an obviously under valued one on it.

By the sounds of things it's going to be full of spares and wheels

This valuation thing is confusing me. I've read that I should have it valued by someone before I go and I've also read that I shouldn't bother having it valued and just leave it for customs when it arrives. Anyone care to lend some clarity to this ??

A couple of years ago I spoke to someone who had imported an LPG fitted 101 camper to Australia, so he could fly over every year for a camping trip.

He said that in order to register the vehicle he had to fit an Aus spec LPG system, but that he was much happier with that than the UK spec system he'd brought the car over with.

I thinks there's still a government subsidy for LPG installations here, so it shouldn't be too fiscally painful.

Originally Posted by Mike_S

By the sounds of things it's going to be full of spares and wheels

This valuation thing is confusing me. I've read that I should have it valued by someone before I go and I've also read that I shouldn't bother having it valued and just leave it for customs when it arrives. Anyone care to lend some clarity to this ??

Customs are pretty au fait with values of most vehicles. They have to be. They do take a dim view of attempts to sneak a below par valuation through to evade duty and GST. I have known vehicles to be impounded and criminal charges proferred against the owner, Commonwealth Crimes Act, attempting to defraud the Commonwealth. If they think there is under-valuation the vehicle will not be released. Customs will inform you of their opinion of the valuation. You may dispute this by offering proof from reputable sources, or pay up at the Customs valuation. In serious cases the vehicle is impounded, and may be offered for sale at auction by Customs, or destroyed. Criminal charges may be laid.

Certainly not looking to evade anything.

Seems I may be better leaving any valuation until the car's landed and sat in the docks.

Originally Posted by Mike_S

Certainly not looking to evade anything.

Seems I may be better leaving any valuation until the car's landed and sat in the docks.

I wasn't suggesting you were. Just outlining what can happen if Customs are unhappy with a valuation.

I have a "friend" who some years back imported a '50's Gibson electric
archtop . The paperwork was for a third of the selling price . Customs
sat on it ( figuratively speaking ) for 8 weeks and informed him they
considered it to have cost him 4 times the declared value . He paid up.

we imported a 4wd a few years ago from the UK, one that we had owned for more than a few 12 months.

our advice is:
* it really pays to have a customs agent who knows what they are doing and have imported cars before. the agent we had had no clue and we had to tell him what to do more often then we would have liked.

* we had problems with the air conditioning - not being ozone friendly. actually the rules allow it still to be imported it just took people some convincing as they did not know otherwise. if we did not do our own research this would have been a bad outcome for us.

* we did plan on doing all the paper work ourselves but there were three fields we could not work out (with helpful names like item id) and the only advice customs would offer is get an agent.

* get the valuation when you arrive. we had the original invoice plus 50,000 miles extra on the car (we drove it from the UK) and the customs valuation was pretty good. I dont think they are out to make life difficult to people bringing their own car in.

* AQIS was a difficult. Steam clean the interior of the car and pressure clean every nook and crany underneath. check the top of all bash plates, holes in the chasis, radiator and air filters (they will probably take it anyway). In our case it was the shipping agent who cleaned up the remaining mess and not AQIS. This was not cheap (cleaning and additional AQIA inspections all cost) and took a long time to organise.

* the other thing you need to pay is stamp duty when you get the car registered. In N.T. this is 3%. The guy at the counter pointed to the generous valuation I had given myself, told me I would need to pay 3% and then kindly found something else to do while I revised it down further.

* when registering the car there were a few issues. Our tint was too dark (UK allows darker) and we have no child anchor points. They let us off with the anchor points.


for us it was a painful process. the agent had told us we would have the car in days so we had basics with us to survive only (tent etc). If I did it again though I would make sure I was not relying on the car to arrive. so have alternatives in aus planned.

jason

Originally Posted by Mike_S

By the sounds of things it's going to be full of spares and wheels

This valuation thing is confusing me. I've read that I should have it valued by someone before I go and I've also read that I shouldn't bother having it valued and just leave it for customs when it arrives. Anyone care to lend some clarity to this ??

My understanding is that there are a few valuations you need! One is for insurance purposes if the car sinks to the bottom of the ocean, another is the value that needs to go on the paperwork and the third is the one that you will end up paying gst on!

Id suggest you go with what Richard (At karmanshipping) advises - thats his job after all and he knows what he's talking about.

Jon