This has just passed me by, which may be of interest to some:
An Alternative Procedure
Owners of an N-reg which used to be on G-reg, or who want to transfer their aircraft from G-Reg to N-Reg, should do the following:
Write to the National Coordination Unit (
[email protected]) or write to general GA matters department at HMRC (
[email protected]). Both departments do reply to emails. One owner who did this received the following reply:
"Free Circulation Certificates have not been issued by this Department for a number of years as they have no legal standing within the EU. There was a ruling made that any aircraft that was registered pre 1985 and was in continuous EU ownership up to 1/1/1993 would be considered as VAT paid. If you are still worried I would suggest you take a printout of the registration history from G-INFO which confirms the aircraft's age and ownerships over that period of time."
The text above is from one of the email replies received from the GA Intelligence Officer, Border Force National Intelligence, Air Intelligence & National Operations. The aircraft owner should carry a copy of the email trail with the UK Border Agency and a print out of G-INFO which proves ownership from first day on which the aircraft left the G-Reg.
For aircraft's where this rule is not applicable no information about what needs to be done could be obtained.
For "vintage" aircraft like e.g. a Cessna 310 it seems to be very easy to prove VAT paid status if it was registered in the EU before 1985 and in EU ownership until 1/1/1993.
Regarding the need to do a full import when an aircraft is moved onto the N-Reg, the reply was:
"There is no problem with re-registering the aircraft on to the US register - the same conditions would apply regarding dates and ownership, so as long as you (or an EU resident) remain the beneficial owner, there would be no requirement to 'import ' the aircraft."