Imported my American Car and now stuck in paperwork - help!

I, too, imported a car - not from the US - and had similar problems.
Absolutely certainly you cannot get your car through the Technical Control without the Certificate of Conformity. Don't waste your time with MINI dealers, go to whoever imports them into Belgium and I'm sure you are not going to be the first person who has had the same problem.
Of course you can sell a used car in Belgium without the Certificate of Conformity. However, your potential buyers can only be someone who is prepared to do what you have to do if you want to run the car here or someone who is going to export the car. In either case you will find the selling price reflecting that.

For once, I find myself in disagreement with KASSEISTAMPER. Technical Control do the Certificate of Conformity. I did this with my UK car.

You do the work needed, take it to them, tell them you need one, and they check it.

In fact, if you take it now, as is, they'll give you a list of anything that needs to be done to get it through the test.

You need to get the test done to get it registered

Talk to an insurance broker - they have all the forms and will guide you through the process.

Technical control can no more issue a certificate of conformity than a UK MOT tester could. How does technical control determine emission levels and BHP for road tax? I am not sure of the process in Belgium but I suspect that if the COC cannot be had from the importer then there must be a system similar to the UK SVA (single vehicle approval) and it will not be cheap.

I know that when I tried to sell my UK bike here the buyer made a big fuss about the bike not being European and the test required to get the COC was expensive. He was wrong in that the bike was European and the COC was obtained via a simple email to BMW UK, but with a US car?

As an aside, why do Americans do this?! It was some years back, but I remember meeting an American who had spent 6 months of his life trying to get his car registered while it rotted in storage and when he did eventually manage it, it took him about 5 minutes to work out it was going to drink him in to poverty and he sold it to a dealer for conversion to LPG.

He also got stung for VAT and duty because he fell foul of not being able to prove he had owned the car for sufficient time.

I know of another who thought they could drive on US plates and US insurance and they ended up several thousand poorer for legal fees and a conviction for, among other things, tax evasion. Seriously, these people taking their cars around the World have to be nuts.

Bridget, I imported my car from another EU country. At the CT centre, I was told it was fortunate I had the COC as a replacement would have cost around 200 euro from the manufacturer (Mercedes). So, contact Mini in the first instance and enquire. As regards changing the spec - headlights, etc., I looked up the yellow pages and bought generic headlamps for a fraction of branded Mercedes lights. My local garage installed them. Remember to hang on to the old ones just in case!

Take a look here;

http://www.autocontrole.be/actfr/pages/text/autokeuring/import.html#nonc...

It seems pretty clear, it's the controle technique who do the certificate for cars imported from outside the EU.

Si le véhicule ne dispose pas d’un certificat de conformité européen, il faudra présenter le véhicule une première fois au contrôle technique pour une procédure de conformité.

Attention, pour certains véhicules provenant hors d’Europe et les véhicule utilitaires, un démontage des disques des freins sera nécessaire. Si vous ne savez pas le faire, venez accompagné d’un mécanicien. Notre personnel ne peut effectuer ce démontage.

Le véhicule est présenté avec ses documents. Un dossier sera établi et transmis au SPF Mobilité et Transports. Entre 1 à 2 semaines, vous recevrez logiquement la réponse du ministère.

Le SPF donne son accord : pas de problème. Le véhicule recevra une attestation tenant lieu de certificat de conformité.

Le SPF ne donne pas son accord : un problème doit être résolu, avant de pouvoir réintroduire une demande de conformité.

The certificate of conformity being discussed here seems to be a European thing, so apparently the UK is also covered, even if it takes an additional step or some modifications for cars imported from different EU member states. European cars manufactured for US have to conform to EPA and other standards, and they do not have a European CoC available. The same goes for Japanese cars manufactured for Japan. Here is an example:
https://www.eurococ.eu/en/faq
I have imported a vehicle from the U.S.A./Japan. Can you arrange a COC for an American/Japanese vehicle?
No. In case of a country outside of the EU, a Certificate of Conformity does not exist for your vehicle. Certificates of Conformity exist only for vehicles produced for the European market and registered for the first time in one of the EU Member States.
With nothing to do the past half hour, I spent it on www searching for answer and found none. I'm sure it is possible, but the answer is elusive.

Just found something on http://www.blbe.be/en/importing-and-registering-car
There is a lot of other information too.

What to do if you do not have a European certificate of conformity?

Apply for one from the seller or from the sales rep for your vehicle's brand OR
File the application in Belgium with your technical inspection department. This is what is referred to as the conformity process. After you have gone to customs (with your pink registration application form with the "705 label"), make an appointment with the technical inspection department to proceed to the vehicle's full inspection.

A record will be then created by the technical inspection department and forwarded to FPS Mobility. As soon as a positive response is received, the inspection department will contact you in order for you to collect the conformity document on site with your vehicle on which a sticker will be affixed close to the engine.

The CT station can do a conformity test -- it costs a bit and when they did it for me it took about 2 hours!! (Was a few years ago no wI think was around €60)

(Be prepared to be taking wheels off for them -- I had to -- they were measuring disc diameters and all sorts!!)

The paperwork then goes off to Brussels who issue the documentation after a great amount of time. -- once it is ready you get a sticker at teh CT station which is attached to teh vehicle by teh CT station (as per Socrates reply above)

I'll post the name of the document tomorrow as it is in teh vehicle.

Just two thoughts before you spend vast sums of money bringing the vehicle physically and fiscally into conformity for use in Belgium, bearing in mind your expressed intention to ultimately sell the car.

Firstly, check what the car would be worth on the s/hand market if it had originally been purchased in Belgium to the equivalent specification - then knock a fair bit off that value because nobody is going to pay that going rate for an ex-US import which may prove to have adverse implications eventually. Then check what going for conformity is going to cost you and decide whether it is worth it - and check out what the gentlemen who buy cars for export might offer you, being an ex-US model may not be a problem to them and you should get rather better than scrap value.

Secondly, there are various US sovereign bases in this part of Europe. I don't know whether personnel based there are allowed to run cars to US specification, but if they are, that might be the best place to sell now.

hello
could you solve your problem with the Mini?
regards
Nico