Monday, August 15, 2011

Registering a Car - Part 2

The following are the steps we had to take to purchase our car here in Bolivia and get it registered:
- Francisco returned to La Paz and gave me his report.  We then went back to the third floor of the Motor Vehicle department, got another order for a telegram to be sent, this time to Santa Cruz.

- Then we went back to the SENATER office, paid another fee and had the second telegram sent to the Santa Cruz Motor Vehicle office.  They said they would call us when they received a reply.

- We waited over a week for the reply which never came.

- Right at that time I had a scheduled trip to Santa Cruz to visit the congregation of FIEL that is located there.  Francisco was designated to accompany us.  We decided that while we were there we would personally visit the Santa Cruz Motor Vehicle office to see what had happened with the telegram that had been sent.

- When we got to Santa Cruz we were able to find the Motor Vehicle building there and first went to the telegram office.  They told us they had not received the telegram that supposedly had been sent. 

- Next we went to the vehicle registration window.  They found a file folder on our car, but it simply had a note about the crime that had taken place in 2007.  There was also a document in that file indicating that the vehicle was actually registered in La Paz!  The lady at the window told us that we would have to go to the Motor Vehicle department in La Paz in order to obtain the document we needed.

- When we got back to La Paz, tired of all the run around we were getting, we hired a lawyer to look into the matter and try to get the document we needed.  The lawyer was successful in getting the document.

- With the final required document in hand, we went back to the Motor Vehicle office in order to submit all the papers.  After waiting four hours in line, when we got up to the window, they told us that the previous person in line was the last one they were going to attend to that day.

- We went back the next day early in the morning.  This time we only had to wait three hours and finally were able to submit all the documents for getting the vehicle registered in my name.

- Now there were only three more steps to take before everything would finally be finalized.  First we had to take the vehicle transfer papers from the Motor Vehicle department to a notary in order to have the signatures both of the former owner and the new owner notarized.

- Next we had to take all the papers back to the Mayor’s office in order to get an ownership card from them.

- The final step was to take a copy of all the papers to the police department in order to get a certificate of ownership from them.

- Finally, after a month and a half of running around, the car is now legally ours.  We thank the Lord that He has granted us success in this endeavor.

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