When you own a auto, and the owner is a Thai. when it is sold do the license plates go with the auto, or do they stay with the owner. Then if it is bought in Bangkok, and the new owner wants to register it in different province, is that ok, and is there any special paper work to do. Thanks

MOVED TO MOTORS FORUM

My recent experience:

I bought a Bangkok registered car in Khon Kaen, I went to the DLT office in Khon Kaen change the blue book to my name. They insisted that the car was registered in Khon Kaen first. So I had to get that process done first and then change it to my name. At that point I had to remove the BKK plates and surrender them. They then gave me the new plates for Khon Kaen. I would assume that had I kept the BKK registration I would have kept the plates.

When I purchased my car in Bangkok the garage told me the previous owner wanted to keep the number that was on the car. I had to sign a few forms and I drove the car to Ubon with a copy of the blue book.

After around 2-3 weeks I received new BKK registered plates and also the blue book c/w the tax disc. The original plates and tax disc on the car I returned to the garage in Bangkok.

If I wanted to keep the BKK plates there would have been no problem. I had already booked a set of plates from the Ubon transport office so when they arrived I handed back the BKK plates and fitted the new Ubon registered plates and they also changed the tax disc and updated the blue book

It may sound complicated but the whole process was very easy.

If the plates say Bangkok 'in Thai' below the number then they are Bangkok Province plates. You don't need to change them and can pay you annual road tax at any LTO that you like. However if you wish to re-register the car in a different Province then they will allocate you a new number.

If you want to choose your number then you go to the LTO and look at the list of numbers available, at that time. If the number you want is on that list then you can ask for it. Lists are updated every so often ... depends on how many cars get registered. So called 'in demand' numbers are auctioned off and are not that cheap.

Yes, it's a paperwork exercise ... the easiest way is to your local LTO and ask. There appears to be no facility to keep your number 'up in the air' like on Retention as you can in the UK. If you want to keep your number then you need to transfer it to a different car and then transfer it back when you get your 'new' car. Well that is how we had to do it ... Mrs Jas wanted to keep our lucky number!!