Using an out of province vehicle in Alberta

[stampsx2]

I was hoping to get a little knowlege from the cp brain with a little issue I'm having. Any insight or expieriences are welcome.

My girlfriends father is leaving for a year on an overseas sabatical. He's nice enough to give us his vehicle to use while he's away. Problem is, he lives in Manitoba and we live in Alberta.

How long can you drive around Alberta with a vehicle registered in another province? As far as I understand it's three months but I might be wrong.
Transfering vehicle ownership isn't my first option since it's a 7% rst tax to transfer back to Manitoba.

Calling insurance and talking to registries is a headache since I seam to get different answers everytime.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Transfering vehicle ownership isn't my first option since it's a 7% rst tax to transfer back to Manitoba.

Could you not transfer it with a stupidly low sale price? As in a dollar? Or is that frowned upon now?

[Hack&Lube]

Can't it be a family gift or something?

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

Could you not transfer it with a stupidly low sale price? As in a dollar? Or is that frowned upon now?

No. They use the Kelly Blue Book value. I wondered that too.

If it's a gift you still have to pay 7% of the Kelly Blue Book value when transfering the vehicle back to Manitoba.

[burn_this_city]

Maintain registration in manitoba for the duration he's gone and don't transfer anything over to you.

[HOWITZER]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Maintain registration in manitoba for the duration he's gone and don't transfer anything over to you.

Bingo. I'm down in Ontario right now roaming around with AB plates on my car. So long as your permanent address remains constant there is no need to change the plates. In your case specifically, so long as it remains registered under the original owner in Manitoba, and he/she keeps a house/residence there then no change is needed!

[billybob123]

And as long as no one is stupid enough to have an expired registration sticker on their out of province plates...

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by HOWITZER

Bingo. I'm down in Ontario right now roaming around with AB plates on my car. So long as your permanent address remains constant there is no need to change the plates. In your case specifically, so long as it remains registered under the original owner in Manitoba, and he/she keeps a house/residence there then no change is needed!

I don't know your exact situation, but you could be uninsured if you were in an accident. For example, if you keep your Alberta licence and insurance (plates) at your parents house, and say you live there, but actually live and work in Ontario, you won't be covered if you are in an accident. This would be insurance fraud. There are exceptions (in ON for school, etc.), but just because you register in one province, doesn't mean it's legal.

There are several instances where an owner of a Manitoba car can let you drive his car in Alberta under Manitoba insurance, but just keeping it and not telling anyone isn't one of them. You'd have to make sure your insurance would cover you in that situation. Yes, it might be more expensive, but you'd actually be covered if things went wrong. If not, you're basically driving around without insurance.

[Vulcan]

One thing I know is that here in BC, they ask you who will be driving and where you will be mostly driving the vehicle since different areas have different rates. Since the car won't be mostly driven in Manitoba and by the insuree, you could run into trouble.

[CalgaryFan1988]

Drive it until the registration runs out, reap the benefits of being immune to photo radar.

[Cuz]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

One thing I know is that here in BC, they ask you who will be driving and where you will be mostly driving the vehicle since different areas have different rates. Since the car won't be mostly driven in Manitoba and by the insuree, you could run into trouble.

I ran into this situation when the wife and I moved here a few years ago from BC. We got rear-ended our first day here (nice welcome back), and the ICBC adjuster changed our zone to Z (out of province), so I assume Manitoba insurance would have something similar.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

If it's a gift you still have to pay 7% of the Kelly Blue Book value when transfering the vehicle back to Manitoba.

Well that's absolutely ridiculous.

[Regular_John]

For what it's worth, my wife had a fender bender situation with one of our neighbours about 5-6 years ago. The guy was living full time in Alberta with his Manitoba plates.

Anyways they have this fender bender and my wife tries to do the standard "exchange information things, talk to the insurance companies" thing but this guy is having none of it. He's convinced the high rolling Albertans are trying to pull one over on him, the only people he'll talk to are the police & Manitoba's MPI (public insurance).

So we try to get in touch with this guy for about 2-3 weeks, nothing, he's not talking to us at all. But he did send the police to our place to get our statements and investigate a "hit & run". But as I said, we'd been trying to talk to him for weeks. The officers did their report, but were not impressed that this guy had wasted their time and lied to them about the nature of the situation.

Around this time we get a letter from MPI telling us we're at a fault, and they need our insurance info to reimburse the guy for repairs. After 2-3 weeks of BS it took just one call to MPI to say "This guy is our neighbour, he's had Manitoba plates on his car for at least 6-7 months, he lives here, he works here, he's not just visiting. Why the Manitoba plates & insurance?"

Never heard another boo about it from him or MPI, and he had Alberta plates later that week.

tl;dr: MPI doesn't take too kindly to using their cheap public insurance while living/working in another province.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

Around this time we get a letter from MPI telling us we're at a fault, and they need our insurance info to reimburse the guy for repairs. After 2-3 weeks of BS it took just one call to MPI to say "This guy is our neighbour, he's had Manitoba plates on his car for at least 6-7 months, he lives here, he works here, he's not just visiting. Why the Manitoba plates & insurance?"

I'm amazed that it took a phone call to them.

Back around 2000 I was involved in a collision. I was living in Calgary with Sask plates (I was a student at the time, and it was completely legal). I had to go to an interview that grilled me up and down about how long I was living here, work and school history, parent's history (as I needed them to be Sask residents for it to remain legal), proof that I was in fact going to school here, etc before they would even look at the claim. I'm just astounded that MPI did zero due dilligence other than claim you were at fault.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

I'm amazed that it took a phone call to them.

Back around 2000 I was involved in a collision. I was living in Calgary with Sask plates (I was a student at the time, and it was completely legal). I had to go to an interview that grilled me up and down about how long I was living here, work and school history, parent's history (as I needed them to be Sask residents for it to remain legal), proof that I was in fact going to school here, etc before they would even look at the claim. I'm just astounded that MPI did zero due dilligence other than claim you were at fault.

Yeah the whole thing was really bizarre, the guy (younger guy, maybe 22-23?) seemed to be convinced that my wife asking for his contact/insurance information was some kind of ruse... yet he contacted MPI and the police with a #### & bull story about a hit and run.

The police were very much "why are we wasting our time with this? Did you exchange information?" while MPI basically said "sorry for wasting your time" and I don't believe our insurance paid anything out as a result.