Purchasing a Car

The following are the steps we had to take to purchase our car here in Bolivia and get it registered:

- Guillermo, the president of FIEL, took us to a place that sells used cars.  After looking at different cars all morning, we found one we liked that was in our price range and told the owner that we wanted to have Guillermo’s mechanic check it over.

- That afternoon the owner brought the car to the church and Guillermo’s mechanic came to look it over.  After thoroughly checking the car over, the mechanic said that the car had engine problems, so we discarded that option.

- The following Saturday Francisco, who from the time of our arrival in Bolivia has been our trusted helper, took us to the same used car location to look for a different car.  Once again, after looking at cars all morning we found one that seemed to be a good option.  As we had done with the previous car, we asked the owner to bring it to the church so that Guillermo’s mechanic could look it over.

- The owner of the car kept the appointment.  This time the mechanic said that though there were some minor things that would need to be repaired, over all the car was in good shape.  We therefore made the determination to purchase the car and made an appointment with the owner for making the transfer.  In order that he would hold the car for us we made a small down payment of $200.

- That same evening, I did a search on the internet on the license plate of the car and found that it had been involved in a crime committed in 2007.  We therefore told the owner that we would have to first investigate to see if there would be any legal problems with the car if we purchased it.

- On Monday and Tuesday of the following week, our trusted helper, Francisco did a thorough investigation to see if there were any legal problems with the car.  He found that there were none.  We decided to continue with the car purchase.

- Since the owner wanted to be paid in cash, we had to go to the bank in order to withdraw the money.  

- We went to a lawyer and had the purchase contract drawn up.

- On Thursday of that week we met with the owner, paid him the remaining amount that we owed, signed the purchase contract and the owner then turned the car and the ownership papers over to us.

Next step - Registering the car (coming soon)....