foreign plates and foreign licences

1.Well i read hundreds of posts and im pretty confused about the whole thing. Now for the driving licence-i got pulled over about a month ago and the cop told me that i have to exchange my licence. now a few days earlier i went to ask in trafico and they told me that it is no longer nececarry. so i told him that and  i saw him getting slightly pissed off and then he said "well this must be new. it wasn't like that a while ago". the cop spent about 40 minutes around the car looking for a reason to write me a ticket and eventually found one and he did write me a ticket for 150€. Well nevermind that prick-i dont care about him.

2.I found this car for sale over here and it seems great. Now the car has been in spain for about 3 years and is on uk plates(obviously right steering wheel but that will never bother me wherever i live). It passed spanish ITV about 8 months ago so the question is-can I legally buy it and drive it as it is without changing the registration cause if i do have to change it then i suppose its not such a good deal. I know there are quite a few companies where i can get it insured without a problem so idk? Many people said i can, including this friend who used to work in the trafico not too long ago... but on the other hand-if i can why the hell is everyone changing their registrations?

The simple answer is no you can not drive it around on UK plates being a Spanish resident.

I found this Guide very useful when registering our car : www.myspain.es/forum/motoring-spain/52-faq-registering-your-uk-vehicle-spain-inc-new-2008-laws.html

It not only tells you how to register the vehicle but why you have to register it. If you have any questions ask the guy who wrote it, I did and he was very helpful.

I've also just read on there about new road traffic laws that will come into force Spring 2010 and it seems they are clamping down on things like insurance and so forth so hopefully they will clamp down on all these illegal British registered, un mot'ed and not insured cars that litter Spain!

Also as your car is UK registered it seems that the ITV you have done is not worth the paper it is printed on!

Hope this helps.