#482 – The Expat Files: Legal Challenges and Bureaucratic Hurdles in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now I wonder Hello there all you expat wannabes I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America the show that tells you just what it's like To live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Okay, you know I always say you definitely need a lawyer right away when you come down here to Latin America Not of course if you're just coming down here on vacation But you do need a lawyer if you plan on staying down here for an extended length of time

[00:46] Now there are some gringles and expats down here specifically people on a very low budget like backpackers For example that could go for years and never have to deal with a government entity or even a lawyer In fact, I occasionally run into gringles and expats down here that are so off the radar that they've been living in a country For example Honduras Guatemala Salvador for 5 10 even 20 years and have let their passports expire It's not a very smart thing to let your passport expire unless you're already well into the process of getting another passport From the Latin country you're living in because you know, you'll have to have a passport that's enforced from your home country Let's say the US to even apply for a residency So don't go thinking well my u.s. Passport expired six months ago best hook up with my lawyer and start that residency process going

[01:37] Well, that's not gonna happen You must keep your first world passport and good standing at least till the permanent residency in the country You're in is all locked in Anyway, like I said if you're planning on staying in any Latin country for an extended period of time You're gonna need a lawyer and if you have a very very low-key life You'll probably never have to use them except for a routine things like opening a bank account and getting that residency going now If you have a more complicated life and you're doing a lot more things in business, etc You're gonna need them for SA corporations getting you utility hookups in your home or apartment He'll be what they call the Theodore the guy that well is your so-called sponsor And you'll lead him as a sponsor on long-term internet hookup contracts and if you're getting health insurance Now if you've been listening to my shows for any period of time, you'll know that already

[02:26] So then why am I talking about lawyers again? Well, you'll always need a lawyer if you're gonna buy a car down here in Latin America So you'll need your lawyer to buy a car and you just might need him to hook up with car insurance, too Now a certain percentage of gringos and expats that come down here to Latin America know some Spanish over the years In fact, I've met quite a few who are actually Spanish teachers up in the States They come down here to Latin America with a huge advantage, of course I'd say it's probably a lot less than 5% of gringos who come down here with a tremendous fluency like that Now, of course with that comes a lot of confidence and I've noticed a lot of these fluent speakers say hell I don't need a lawyer. I know my Spanish. I can do all this myself I know I'll have to stand in a lot of lines

[03:11] But I'll save some money for sure and along the way Of course, it'll be a learning experience to sit with the common folks and fight it out at those government offices And a certain percent of fluent gringos with a lot of time on their hands do fight it out like that In fact, some look forward to it They get their boots on the ground and they feel it's a great learning experience and a lot of said Overconfident gringos think the easiest way to do that is is to march right up get in line and confront the government bureaucracy Head-on like the 95% of the rest of Latin population that can't afford a lawyer Well speaking from experience unless you've got infinite amounts of time on your hands. I'm telling you it's not worth it You're still gonna need that lawyer in a second I'm gonna tell you a little story that happened just this week now remember

[03:58] I've been down here more than 25 years now and my Spanish is at least 90 percent even so this week I've found I couldn't even do what you might consider a very simple thing pay the yearly license renewal fee for my car Even though I successfully paid it rather quickly last year the year before and many years before that but this year They changed the system in the past. I just take my little driver's registration card It looks like a credit card called a Calcomonia that has all of your vehicles registration numbers, etc on it So what you do is every year go down to a government authorized bank They'd print that bank list in the paper every once in a while So you'd get it from there or ask your lawyer so you'd go to the bank hand them that little Calcomonia card

[04:43] They tell you the fee of gotta pay they print out a little sticker and that's your new sticker for the year At least that's how it's done until this year in most Latin countries But now you see in the effort to become modernized most Latin governments are now computerizing that system so that you can do it at home online go to the right government website Click on the vehicle plate renewal link and you'd think then you just have to do a few things like plug in your plate Number along with your name. That would be you or an SA corporation Then you'd print out a receipt and bring it down to any one of those authorized banks and you're finished They'd stamp it paid you'd put it in your car's glove compartment And if you ever got pulled over you just hand it to the cop as proof of payment for the year sounds simple, huh?

[05:31] But believe me it ain't and by the way That's really the only reason you'll ever get pulled over at one of those roadblocks To see if you'd paid your yearly fee for your place like any lard ass government slopping at the trough The only reason most government agencies exist is to extort money from you. It's no different in Latin America But luckily down here the extortion rates are very small So for example, if you get pulled over and you haven't paid your yearly license fee, you're gonna get fined maybe 35 bucks Nope, they won't hold you. They won't take your car away. They'll just write you a ticket Oh, and by the way, I use the car a lot and in the last calendar of the year I got pulled over a total of once remember cops don't chase you down here They just stake out busy roads and flag people down once in a while

[06:18] then the first thing they'll do is ask you for your license registration and The proof that you've paid your vehicle's license fee for the year and you know It doesn't matter if your windshields broken out or you've got 40 people packed in the back of your pickup truck Your bumpers torn off you got no headlights tail lights or seat belts Even if you're carrying a truckload of nuclear waste all they care is you've got your license registration and yearly plate fee paid up So they'll find you for that but practically nothing else Oh and by the way Like I said in a past show if you don't have your license or registration You'll just get a 25 to 50 dollar fine. They won't hold you. They won't take your car They'll just write you a ticket. That is if you're a Latin person However, if you're a gringo a lot of times they'll just let you slide. Yep. The gringo advantage is alive and well again

[07:08] We're talking off the gringo tourist trail here in Costa Rica Panama and parts of Mexico. It's a completely different story They'll nail ya. So anyway, suddenly throughout Latin America paying your yearly car registration fee has become a complete Utter nightmare because you see Latin governments in their retarded moronic pinheaded effort to modernize I know I know I'm being way too kind here So I'll dispense with the compliments in other words They're creating yet another bureaucratic layer this time with computers programmed by dickheads and operated by people with sixth grade Education's shades of old vomit care, huh? So now they've done what they've always done made it so impossibly complicated So full of errors and glitches that almost no one even local letters who are so called computer literate can figure it out

[07:57] Now you have to wonder who developed the buggy retarded software for this crappy new system Obviously the contract went out to some congressman's friend or relative someone with Bush juniors IQ. I imagine sounds familiar, huh? Now you must remember that I said many times that only 15 to 20 percent of all Latin's have a reliable Internet hookup at home But now even those cheap throwaway phones have internet hookups for those all-important tweets Of course, and that means practically everyone in Latin America Even the shoeshine boy can post a photo and explain the consistency of their latest bowel movement on Facebook And of course the GPS coordinates of the McDonald's where the act was performed So I suppose anyone who's got a car or a truck whatever could hypothetically get online and give this new

[08:45] License renewal thing a try. I mean wasn't that the idea in the first place to streamline the old procedure Which really was simple except for the fact you'd end up standing in line at a bank for a couple hours Well, I'm sure you've gathered by now They've done nothing but cook up another stinking batch of bovine excrement because as I'll explain in detail soon enough First of all, there are four big pages to the form you have to fill out with characters and letters so small You can't read it on a standard smartphone Yeah, really do need a full-screen computer. Oh, and by the way, here's something else I failed to mention you have to print out those four pages and You'll notice a few warnings here and there that say you should only bring the last page to the bank Which means you've got to have a working printer, right?

[09:31] Well in the latest straw poll that I've seen in one of the big Latin newspapers It says that less than 5% of Latins have a computer printer. That's working at home So even though 15 to 20 percent of Latin families have an internet hookup at home Only about one in four of those folks has a printer that's actually working So even if you were able to navigate through this retarded chaotic government no man's land You'll have to load those pages in the cloud or on a USB and go to an office depot or some kind of internet cafe And print them out and remember like I said There are warnings all over the place on this internet site that you should only print out the last page of four So why do you think that is? I've been wondering that too. So anyway, like I said, my Spanish is about 90%

[10:21] So I actually don't need a lawyer for a lot of things Meaning for the past 10 years or so. I haven't needed any help in paying my yearly license renewal fee now You know up in the states you're reminded of your license renewal time with a snail mail and email For example in Chicago you pay I think these days a hundred and one bucks to renew your car registration and you can do it all online and of course your Registration comes due or the only one expires depending on the date you first bought your car and got it registered That is your payment period. So why am I mentioning this because get ready down here in Latin America? everybody registers at the same time on January 1st of each year that means for example in a country like Panama

[11:08] You've got about two million drivers that have to register on the first now This is Latin America So one of the hardest things in the world for these governments to do is to get people to pay that Registration fee on time, which is why right now in August I'm reading from the Central American Data Express news service that approximately only 40 to 45 percent of drivers have paid their License renewal fees for 2015 even though they were due on January 1st, which was six months ago So you have to ask how can that happen? Well, the only way you can really explain it is by manana time and well tradition Which by the way is the reason why all these countries are switching to these retarded online systems They think it'll make life easier and so people will pay on time. Yeah when pigs fly

[11:57] So they've made it easier for the public, right? The vast majority of which have no access to internet much less their own printer to actually print out the forms How's that for genius planning? So in another truly brilliant move Latin governments have set it up so that everyone has to pay at the same time Totally independent of when you registered your car You see as it turns out before January 1st of every year about three months before that Articles will appear in the paper telling people it's time to pay their yearly car registration Then when January 1st comes around in less than 50% of paid it The government can't very well find half of the drivers in the country. Well, they could but they don't now every June in July You'll see articles saying you must pay your license fee by August 1st now

[12:46] I know how ridiculous this sounds but is a symptom of how Latins feel about their government You gotta love it, huh that half or more of all Latin American drivers for the first six months of every year are driving vehicles That are not legally registered. The truth is I've spoken to a couple of these guys at the motor vehicle department And they said if they actually forced everyone to pay by January 1st They'd have lines in front of banks and government offices 10 blocks long Why because they haven't figured out yet that one of the most idiotic moves they ever made was years ago When they didn't stagger out the payment plan by car registration date So these motor vehicle guys will tell you it's a relief to have people pay late How you like that now the government revenue departments hate that but the workers sitting on their fat dead asses wouldn't have it any other way

[13:37] Meanwhile the bean counters are pushing these stupid new reforms even though license and vehicle registration fees Never really increase the living standards for the public What doesn't go for salaries gets stolen and ends up buying the summer homes the SUVs the helicopters and the fleet of bodyguards For the select few scumbag bottom feeders at the top of the government food chain Wait, did I say bottom feeders at the top of the government food chain? Well, you know what I mean So the system has been broken a long time yet It still rolls on and now I've noticed in the papers There are notices saying if you don't pay by August 1st the fines called multis down here will actually be imposed So now we've just poked into August already and guess what still 40 to 50 percent of people have not paid

[14:25] Why because of this brand new online system that's got everyone confused including the government and the banks that are supposed to collect the money Now normally as gringles and expats just let our lawyers do all this In fact, your lawyer himself won't go down and do it. It'll be someone from his office though That's always been the way for gringles and expats who have a little or no Spanish Then as your Spanish gets better and better you try certain things yourself like paying the water cable TV Electric bill etc as well as your car license fee renewal that used to be simple So then let me tell you just what happened to me this week when I tried to do it now Remember if I can't get this done after being down here 25 years. Well, you see where I'm going with this Anyway, now just to tell you up front that me and almost all expats in gringles wait till the last minute to pay our

[15:16] License fees too because well no one gets a notice in the mail or by email like in the states And if you don't read the papers much You won't see that the delinquency notices either and even if you do read the paper you think well hell No one pays it till August anyway, so why should I you don't get fined? So anyway, let me walk you through the process that I went through and once again I think Buddha that I didn't have a loaded weapon nearby You'll understand why in a second now you've heard me talk about how for some expats road rage Never really goes away even down here in Latin America. It's always smoldering under the surface Well, expat Eddie has coined another malady that gringos often have and just can't get rid of he calls it cashier Or check out counter rage and that you can experience anywhere down here in Latin America

[16:05] But most often in government and bank offices. Anyway, here's what happened to me last week in the paper It said in bold letters You can now for the first time pay your car registration fee online and he said if you don't do it online you have to go down to the center of the city to one of the Specific government offices and buy a useless government document called a bowletto or not Oh for about two or three bucks Then and only then can you do it the old way and bring that registration card with you to the bank and pay it However, it's said in this news article that if you don't go through the process online, there are bound to be gigantic lines at the government Authorized banks now, I remember last year. I waited at least 45 minutes to get mine processed at the bank

[16:51] So this year I was all for streamlining things Oh, and by the way, remember I said it was a hundred and one dollars a year If you pay for your car registration in Illinois You also have to go to the emission control center and pay 15 or 20 bucks And if your car doesn't pass the repair fees really start adding up note that down here in Latin America Except I believe for Mexico and Costa Rica There are no emission control centers for better or worse for worse Because every time you hit the road you're gonna end up behind some guy blowing a cloud of smoke in your face But in a way, it's for the better because you have one less bureaucratic nightmare to deal with Oh, and by the way There is a very simple way to clean up all the car and truck pollution down here in Latin America One that would involve almost no government interference whatsoever

[17:36] Minimal anyway and virtually no pollution control bureaucracy to speak of and that would be forbid the licensing or use of any car or truck that was over let's say Ten years old because you see it's the cars and trucks and buses that are ten years old and over that are blowing the smoke Not the newer ones So what if you have a car or bus over ten years old? Well, then maybe you'd have to pay double triple even quadruple the normal licensing fee Let me tell you that'll stop those junks from cluttering up the road down here But a simple solution like that is way too logical for any government I guess now if you remember earlier, I mentioned that in, Illinois It's a hundred and one bucks a year for registering any car. Well, wouldn't you know down here in Latin America?

[18:21] They made a bureaucratic mess out of that too. Nope. It's not a single yearly fee for any in all cars It's highly dependent on the make model in a year and the size of the engine And of course the newer the vehicle is the more you pay suppose you had for example a Toyota RAV You know small SUV in most Latin countries You'll pay anywhere from two to five hundred dollars for the plate the first year then the second year Maybe fifty bucks less then by about the fifth year. It's down to two hundred bucks After about seven to ten years old all cars settle in to around maybe 75 bucks a year And what do you get for that? Absolutely, nothing bad roads potholes terrible lighting at night lack of guardrails, but you knew that already, right?

[19:08] But luckily in all the high-end neighborhoods were wealthy Latins live and of course most expat gringos the roads are nice There's good lighting and even the occasional guardrail Anyway, my point is you never really know exactly how much you're gonna pay for your car You know till you go down to the bank or check it out on the internet now Why every individual car is not billed at the same rate who knows there's absolutely no logic to it But since when did anyone ever accuse a government of being logical that would be the purview of the private sector, right? So anyway, here's that simple process that turned into a two-day nightmare for me about a week ago I went to the government website as directed and guess what when I got there. There's a grand total of 24 government forms there and you're supposed to know the form you want then you select it

[19:56] And the only clue you have is that there are five government forms that have the word vehicle in them So eventually as you click through the forms you get the one that talks about registration Okay So if your Spanish is not at least 50% at this point it could take you 20 minutes to never to find the correct form But that's just the beginning. Okay, so you pull the right form up But what they don't tell you is that it's just one of four pages When by the way when you click on the site that they tell you in the newspaper The letters and words in the email address itself have nothing to do with a vehicle or registration site There is no hint there, you know, nothing with the word vehicle or DMV in the title that might help again That would be way too logical wouldn't it?

[20:42] Well, you know what they say the top 5% of every college graduating class goes into business and the bottom 5% go into government You know what government flunkies used to say in Chicago sees get degrees. I guess that's a worldwide truism, huh? Oh and by the way when you load in that government web page It only hits or connects about one out of three times obviously because the morons vastly underestimated the number of hits they were gonna get Okay, so I'm on the right government website and I found my way to the right form and it says on the form how many vehicles would you like to validate or register and your choices are one or Two or more, of course, this is the Spanish again So I click one and one of those little security boxes pops up with a jumble of letters

[21:27] Of course, then you type them in to prove you're a human and not a bot Anyway, I soon found out it doesn't matter what letters or symbols you type in when you pass go or enter it accepts them The pinheads screwed that up too. So you might ask me how I figured that out so quickly Well, once I put my license plate number and tax number in because it acts for that too And I press the little gold box that says consult the data for this vehicle I'd press that button and repeatedly a red flag would come up and say this license plate does not exist in our system And I did it about five times each time I had to go back to the beginning to the box where it said I had to choose between one vehicle or two vehicles or more So I'd go back press one vehicle put in my license place number and the tax number and it would

[22:14] Continuously say this vehicle is not registered in the system. So after about five times, I'm about to give up thinking about guess What calling my lawyer and letting his office to this like almost every other gringo does Then I decided well, maybe I'll check this other box that says two or more vehicles Now, of course, I don't have two or more vehicles. So I'm grasping at straws and it shouldn't work So when I click that little icon it accepted my data and all of a sudden it Recognized the car and gave me a few more options to pick and that's how I discovered when the box came up with the jumbled Letters that you can put anything in because I had to do it five frickin times and right about now I'm thinking what about all those poor Latins that are all thumbs They're at somebody's computer and they get stuck at the very same point

[23:02] Putting in one vehicle and never getting past that and I'm thinking if I'm gonna give up after five tries and call my lawyer What about those poor schmucks? Okay, I'm on page two of this four page form now And I don't know that it has four pages. So it gives me the option to save or print So I printed out these two pages as instructed and drove over to the bank took about a half hour I walk up there and they look at me and they say there's two more pages you have to print out Now this is after waiting in line a half hour like you're usually doing a bank down here. I say what she says Yeah, you know, you got to print out all four pages So I get back to my computer get to page three and it tells me my final payment, which is about 80 bucks And then it says in small letters. This may not reflect the true cost

[23:50] You may have some transit fines that must be resolved first Click here on this link to see if you've accumulated any fines this year. So I click that link and guess what? There's five more links and now you got to find out if you've got any outstanding tickets You click on the first link that says national police fines Then you go through that you put your plate number down again along with your tax ID number Then those jumbled security letters come up again and you can put in anything there Like I said before and it'll work and finally after about five to ten minutes You'll find out if you've got any fines there now There's four more links and you've got to do that four more times One of them is for the transit police one for the police in the outlying areas That would be kind of like the sheriff's department

[24:35] And in this case there's two more counties that assess their own local fines and you got to check those too And of course depending on the Latin country you're in all this can be slightly different. Good luck with that So for me luckily there were no fines I can just imagine the continuing nightmare that would have been to resolve those The only saving grace there is that they're generally very small anywhere from 20 to 50 bucks Okay, so then I printed out all those four pages and it was getting late the banks were closed the next morning I went down to the bank half hour again in traffic and a half hour in the line and guess what? They told me I couldn't pay it. They weren't gonna accept my paperwork And the lady as nice as she could point it to the date It was yesterday's date on the printed out form turns out

[25:24] You got to print that thing out and pay it that same day or else you got to do it again the next day Imagine that in the land of infinite manana time this particular license fee Document of all things is time sensitive and you think you'd be clued into that anywhere. Nope. That would be way too logical So at that point again, I'm so glad I did not have a loaded gun on me Always a wise decision, especially when on the road in a government office or at a bank So anyway I trudged on back to my residence a nice case of check out cashier rage brewing Went back to the bank which makes three times back to that bank just to pay the stinking fee all in all Two days wasted and all the while I'm thinking of me a real bona fide engineer

[26:14] 25 years in Latin America 90% fluent at least can barely crawl my way through this process What chance does the average Latin guy have remember the average guy with a rusted out box? That's never seen an oil change surely doesn't have a lawyer to do these things for him Remember 95% of Latin Americans who drive vehicles don't even have car insurance I want to know how these guys maneuver through this strange bizarre Digital matrix their government seems to be creating for them So anyway, like I said at the very beginning of this program No matter how good your Spanish is and how determined and patient you are you're gonna need a lawyer Oh, and by the way, the last time I was in the bank There were three people behind me holding their papers trying to do the same thing And I noticed they were holding the papers that you're not supposed to give to the bank

[27:02] That's what it said on the internet, which leads me to believe that the whole damn digital system. They've created is totally insecure Oh, and remember before we finish here I want to remind you that Richard Martin is still signing up people for his Southeast Asian Seminar taking place later in August in the city of Penang his new email is Rwlmartin1 at gmail.com or you can reach him at his phone number three. Oh five four five four two seven. Oh seven south of the border You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border Email me the expat files at gmail.com and don't forget to check out expat wisdom.com to sign up for your free

[27:51] Reports on Latin America. See you next time. Nos vemos