I know, I know: Where have I been? Mostly here in San Miguel. There just hasn't been too much to write about that I haven't addressed in earlier posts, ya know? How many weather-related posts can anyone read?
We have been a little busy: Friends from Canada who are having their house in San Miguel remodeled visited for a few months earlier this year. Our best friend in town hosted his mother's visit recently. Facebook friends from Orange County visited. All of which called for drinks at La Azotea, dinners, et cetera. So our life hasn't been dull.
Did I tell you that our friend here in town has opened a hostel? Michael got to 'volunteer' to help with the transition from small hospital to hostel. Quite the changeover (before and after pictures on Facebook).
Now we're looking forward to an exciting summer! Not expecting any more visitors, but there's plenty to do. We've been granted a new 2-year lease on our home, so it's time to do some of those things that we've been delaying: More pictures going up (in homes with cement walls inside and out, hanging pictures is a project); reorganizing the bodega (the former live-in maid's room, we use it for storage); install the solar fireflies in the back yard (we've been carrying around that kit for years, originally planning on using them in our home in Los Angeles); sorting out the Harry Potter Memorial Bedroom (it's the closet under the stairs to the second floor). Next up is getting the new light fixtures for the entry and backyard and having them put up; moving the light switches for the backyard lights to the inside of the house; we're saving money for (and window shopping for) a new clothes washer (the Bosch unit that we brought from L.A. has begun acting squirrely); and renewing visas and nationalizing our car.
Nationalizing our car??? Yes, when one converts to a Residente Permanente visa (sort of like a green card in the States), one can no longer drive a foreign-plated car with a Temporary Import Permit (TIP). [The police in Mazatlan have reportedly confiscated three cars driven/owned by recently christened Permanente holders. Yikes!] We've had such a TIP for our minivan since moving to Mexico, as we continue to accumulate time in residence towards that elusive Permanente visa. We're going to try for the visa this year in August.
While we're still a year short for making a simple transition, we're still going to Immigration each year, paying fees, having pictures taken, filing applications for extensions, et cetera. Once we manage Permanente status there are no annual renewals: No more photos, applications, fees - we're just here. The only other step would be citizenship, but with my language skills in Spanish, that's not a good bet! And with Permanente status we don't have to watch our time out of the country. Not that we're gone a lot, but with our current visas, that time is limited. No more worries with a Permanente visa. [I'm hoping that I turned in the correct forms when returning to the country on each trip or they may think I left years ago and never came back!]
If we can't manage the changeover to Permanente this year, we can change to a Temporal visa for one more year and then we don't have to prove income for the change to Permanente next year. There's some question as to whether there are lower fees for the second person if there's a familial relationship. We're dealing with a facilitator who handles this sort of thing, and waiting for her take on our situation. To take advantage of a lower qualifying financial base (if that is so), we'd try for a familial relationship, so we'd likely have to have our California marriage license registered with the federal government in DF [pronounced Day-effay for Distrito Federal] in Mexico City. And who knows how long that would take. Hence one of our concerns about meshing the timing of the car nationalization and new visas.
And just to make things more complicated, our original choice of visas was FM2 or FM3. We opted to go directly to an FM2 visa, so that we could gain residency more quickly. Then they changed the names of the visas to Inmigrado and Non-Inmigrado and some of the rules, but they operated much the same way.
Now we've got Residente Temporal and Residente Permanente to deal with and all the changes that came with it all. After knowing what to expect for the last few years, we're on a steep learning curve again. One of the changes creeps in backwards. The Aduana (customs) rules are based on earlier versions of immigration visas, but the named visas have gone away. So there's the question of what do you do with your vehicle now? Can Permanente holders still drive a car with a TIP? Can they not? What do you do with your car? That's why we're going ahead with the nationalization process - sooner or later we'll need Mexican plates on our van.
So, back to the car issue. One normally nationalizes a car at the border and the process takes up to two weeks. Rather than driving back to Texas, staying in a hotel/motel, eating out for two weeks, entertaining ourselves for two weeks, boarding the dogs for two weeks, et cetera, et cetera, we decided to take advantage of a recent, temporary Amparo and do it long distance. Don't bother looking up 'amparo' in your Spanish/English dictionary; I don't think it translates. Basically, it's the result of a court decision that gives the injured party the ability to do something that they were prevented from doing (which resulted in the court case). In our case, a particular broker was given permission to import cars of a certain age and lineage that would not otherwise be eligible for importation for a limited time. So we were under the gun to make a decision.
We found an agent in Guadalajara ('nearby Guadalajara') who had a relationship with that particular broker, so we are able to handle everything without leaving San Miguel and skip the trip to the border. While a bit more expensive, we don't incur the costs of living NOB for two weeks while the process goes forward, so it's at least a wash.
We contacted the agent, sent all the paperwork and photos via email, and transferred the deposit into their bank account (thanks, Tim, for helping with that! US banks are not very helpful with their rules for wire transfers - even to another US bank). Then we sat back to wait. That was last week.
I'm not the most patient person....so I was thrilled to receive an email from the agent that the Pedimento (the approval of the importation by Aduana - Mexico's customs agency) was in process and would be available early next week! We only transferred the funds last week! When the agent has the Pedimento they will let us know our balance (courier fees, differences in exchange rates, et cetera) and we will make the final funds transfer. Once it's couriered over to us, we take the Pedimento to our local DMV (okay; it's not called the DMV) agency to file it, have the vehicle's VIN verified, and pay for the registration ('buy the plates') and then we're legal! Still need to sort out the insurance ramifications (waiting for a second quote), but it's not required in Mexico (though wise to have it), so that shouldn't delay registering the car - and it sits most of the time in it's little off-street parking space here at home.
And this is all tied back into our visa situation because under the terms of the amparo, we had to possess an FM2/Inmigrado visa. (Which we do.) However, if we had to settle for Residente Temporal visas later this summer and the nationalization hadn't taken place yet, we wouldn't have been able to import the car. We would have the wrong type of visa. And with the way things sometime move in Mexico, there was a concern about which would be finished first. And Mr. Hope-for-the-best-but-plan-for-the-worst had concerns. Which are now ka-puff! With luck - and the creek don't rise - we should have the Pedimento in our hands by the end of next week.
As I mentioned before, we're already working with a facilitator on our visa situation. Once again, forewarned is forearmed. If we need to register things with the federal government, it could take time and might require a personal appearance in Mexico City. And our expiration date on our current visas occurs while we're in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the opera season, so this needs to be planned out. I believe that our facilitator can file our applications for us and then we return for fingerprints and photos afterwards (we return to town the day after the visas expire).
Anyway, that's our summer! Hope yours is good as well.
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