When a vehicle has been temporarily deregistered for months, exceeding a year, it is suspected of being a zombie vehicle. The traffic authorities have been warning about it for some time: they are going after them.
Driving a temporarily deregistered vehicle is prohibited. Although this status has certain advantages, such as not having to pay municipal road tax, we must be very careful about moving the car. It is not allowed. Does this mean that a temporarily deregistered vehicle cannot be parked on the street either? Exactly. If it is temporarily deregistered, you will need to find a garage or private space to keep it in.
The Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) has been very clear on this for some time: any vehicle parked on the public highway must have valid insurance and ITV, so if we are going to temporarily deregister a vehicle, we will have to take it off the road and off the public highway (parking included).
The traffic authorities point out that this type of deregistration is temporary in nature (as its name suggests), with no deadline; and that this situation can be reversed or turned into permanent deregistration. But given the spectacular rise in temporary deregistrations, the DGT has decided to act by amending the General Vehicle Regulations: to prevent this irregularity, the limit will now be one year.
When is a vehicle temporarily deregistered?
Temporary deregistration can be carried out by booking an appointment at the relevant Provincial Traffic Headquarters, or online. In principle, three reasons are accepted:
- Immobilisation of the vehicle (as we are not using it, we would like to save on insurance and annual municipal tax).
- Handover of the vehicle in a sale.
- Theft of the vehicle, a circumstance which in many cases would also allow it to be deregistered when the theft is reported.
The circumstances of these vehicles can be very different. What they have in common is a name: they are zombie cars or vehicles. Some have ended up in a scrapyard, or have been broken up for parts and sold illegally. Others have changed hands, being transferred to a third party or to a second-hand car dealer.
Rise in temporary deregistrations
Sticking to the statistics, 700,000 vehicles are deregistered every year. The problem is that, for some years now, there has been a growing trend in temporary deregistrations, which now account for half of the total (in 2004 they accounted for 5% of the total, Motorpasión reported in 2020). They have practically doubled. In 2019 there were 132,459 vehicles in this situation. Hence the DGT's stance.