Shipping to Cayman

Hi

I am currently living and working in London but have accepted a job with a professional services firm and will move to Cayman in February/March. I will be moving with my wife and very young baby.

I have reviewed caymanresident but I wanted advice / views on shipping cars from the U.K. to Cayman.

We currently drive an old Dhaitsu but it’s reliable and only got around 30000 miles on the clock. I’d say it’s worth less than £3000 but would be ideal for our first couple of months in Cayman. We are considering buying a second hand “hybrid” car to ship over too as the import tax/charges are low.

We would fill the cars full of our personal belongings (clothes, baby furniture etc) and ship everything together a month or so before we arrive on the island.  I know that the import duty on the Dhaitsu would be 29% of the value of the car (including shipping and insurance).

Do you think it is a good idea to buy a second hand “hybrid” car and ship both this and our Dhaitsu over to Cayman? I’ve received one quote for shipping the Dhaitsu only and that is approx £3k but as I said above we would be putting all our belongings in the car so not incurring separate shipping costs for clothes, etc.

I’ve just heard a few horror stories about the cost of cars and whilst my employer will put us up for a month (and give us a car for the first month) it would mean we could focus our efforts on finding accommodation in our first month!

Any help would be appreciated!