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If you have any intention of staying in the UK for longer than one year then you might as well get your British drivers license as soon as you can after you've arrived. Getting you British drivers license is a relatively simple process because the South African drivers license is acceptable for direct conversion to a Brtish drivers license. You will be allowed to drive using your South African drivers license for the first 12 months in the UK. After 12 months you will have to stop driving until you have converted your license. For some reason you have 5 years in which you can do this.
In the UK all motor vehicle and driver licensing is controlled by the DVLA - Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Go to their website, find the office nearest to you and take the following along;
- passport
- proof of address
- South African drivers license
- 1 x passport size photograph
- £50
Once there you can complete the necessary forms. Be aware however that you will have to forfeit your South African drivers license and you will have to leave your passport at the DVLA. They do return it, but suggest you allow them one month. I had mine back in under two weeks.
The card drivers license that you will be issued with is a handy thing to have. It has both your photo and address on it so can be used as proof of identity in most circumstances.
You will also be issued with a paper version. This is best kept in your personal files. It will be needed for changes of address. It is illegal not to register a change of address with the DVLA and as soon as you do you will be issued with a new card license with the new address. Don't worry this is a free service.
As a South African, in South Africa, this was always an easy concept. We all had our green ID books and, if ever asked, this was sufficient proof of who we were. More recently, with the repercussions of international terrorsim and some people living off the proceeds of illegal activites an additional requirement has been set that we also needed to prove where we lived. Again this was easy - as we all lived somewhere and had the relevant utility bills addressed to us at our residential addresses.
When you arrive in England for the first time to settle you need to remember that you basically do not exist, except for some record kept somewhere that the relevant visa was issued to you. You definitely won't have an English ID book or card - they don't use them - yet. And there is much political debate as to whether they ever will. You more than likely will not have a fixed residential address and neither will you have any utility bills being posted to you at the address that you don't yet have.
Why is proof of identity so important you may ask? Well the number one most critical reason is so that you can open bank accounts. Without a bank account it is very difficult to operate, as you could imagine. My recommendation would be to open a UK bank account before you leave South Africa. Once you arrive in the UK you can then update your details with the bank to reflect your new address. More on this in a later post.
But getting back to identity. The basic idea is that you need to start building a track record again so that various credit agencies and banks can check on your "new history".
The first thing you need is an address, and obviously this comes with having a place to live. By and large I think most people will start their lives in the UK renting a home. To do this you will have to sign a short term tenancy (rental) agreement and this then will provide you with proof of address.
Now, once you are in your "new"home you will need to apply for an electricity, gas and water account. This is easily done contacting your preferred supplier and registering with them. Once connected you should start to receive correspondence from them. So now you have a utility bill adressed to you at your new home address. Amazingly this can now be used as a form of identity!
The next important step in the ID process is to register yourself on the voters roll. This can be done very easily by contacting the local county council office or the local offices of one of the political parties. I found them to be very obliging and all the necessary forms were received in the mail within a day or two.
Having a form of photo ID other than your passport is also quite handy. The most common of these is the British driving license. Fortunately for South Africans the process to obtain a British license is relatively simple. You need to find the closest Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) Offices and get yourself there with a couple of passport photos, your South Afrcan driving license and passport as well as about £90. There are a couple of forms to fill in and you will need to hand in your South African driving license and passport. I must admit, coming from South Africa, I was a bit nervous about leaving my passport there. But true to the DVLA's word the passport arrived back in the mail about 10 days later. This was closely followed by the card drivers license with a photo on it.
All in all the process is not difficult but it does take a bit of time.
