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Knowing a consensus here is a moot point, I would enjoy


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Guest bennie2

why doesnt everyone just do the right thing to avoid problems. owned a car here (dont have a licence). did not have insurance. i let others drive the car w/out me inside. looking back it was a disaster about to happen. (there were dents, so i sold it). why take a chance in mexico??

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What about (articulo 106 de la ley aduadanera) is that no longer valid?

Article 106 does not relieve us from following other Mexican laws governing the operation of foreign-plated vehicles in Mexico.

Article 106 is just one of several parts of the Ley Aduanera governing temporary import permits (TIPs). Article 106 describes who is permitted to operate a temporarily imported vehicle, and under what circumstances. Since Article 106 is just one part of the Ley Aduanera's TIP rules, we must also follow the other requirements, like the June 2010 part of the Aduana law requiring that we notify Aduana of our INM permit renewals.

Even though Article 106 describes that our permits remain valid when we continuously maintain valid INM permits, we still must notify Aduana every time we renew our INM permits. The two parts of the Ley Aduanera work together on this issue.

Continuing on the theme that Article 106 is just one part of Mexican law governing TIPs, multiple Mexican state governments have additional legal requirements that foreign-plated vehicles must also keep their Canadian or US registrations and license plates current back in their home Province or home state to be legally allowed to drive in that Mexican state.

Claiming that we have followed one provision of a Mexican law, does not relieve us from following the other parts of Mexican laws.

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It does not matter if the Mexican policeman can check on your status. If we have all our documents in order, we wouldn't be worried about that anyways. The point is that we are encouraging people to do something illegal!! Wherever you are from, you should know if your registration is active or expired. If you happen to be from a jurisdiction where your reg expires when you formally transfer it - or not, that is not the point. All I said was that the registration must be active, and to drive a vehicle with an INACTIVE reg is illegal, in almost any jurisdiction.

Just because you can get away with breaking a law, does that make it OK to do it? Just because we know about other people getting away with something illegal, should we go and so the same? Breaking the law here shows that we are no better than the illegal immigrant that enters in to our own country and does the same. Not to mention the possible legal repercussions if one would to be involved in a serious accident or fatality.

I prefer to set a better example and do the right thing. My conscious is clear and I know that my bases are covered.

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Two weeks ago a friend had is 2004 Toyota Highlander which is titled in Texas, totaled (not his fault). His Texas registration was not current. We met with the insurance company. They wanted proof his car was in Mexico legally. When he renewed his visa he had not gone to Aduana to extend permit. I called Aduana and then we went to Aduana at the Queretaro airport. He was told he lost his deposit but his vehicle is legal. They extended the car permit to match expiration on his lucrativa visa. The document was given to his insurance representative. The insurance company was satisfied and will pay for his vehicle. There was no mention of registration and just wanted to see his title.

When we had our 2008 Ontario car we did not renew registration. We were insured by San Xavier. We wrote to Bob and asked if this was an issue and he wrote back it was not and car is insured.

I see posts here where those who were in accidents and registration was not current and were insured when in an accident. I have yet to ever read where a person in an accident was denied insurance for registration not being current. Annual registration is a tax in my opinion. If someone was in an accident, registration not current and insurance not paid, please post. The person still owns the car.

Sonia

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Two weeks ago a friend had is 2004 Toyota Highlander which is titled in Texas, totaled (not his fault). His Texas registration was not current. We met with the insurance company. They wanted proof his car was in Mexico legally. When he renewed his visa he had not gone to Aduana to extend permit. I called Aduana and then we went to Aduana at the Queretaro airport. He was told he lost his deposit but his vehicle is legal. They extended the car permit to match expiration on his lucrativa visa. The document was given to his insurance representative. The insurance company was satisfied and will pay for his vehicle. There was no mention of registration and just wanted to see his title.

Sonia

Thanks for confirming what I had been told regarding expired tags and import permits.

Any comments,snowyco,thesarge7,rvgringo?

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I have acquaintenances who had their car stolen in Mexico, and their insurance company refused to pay because Aduana had no records of them properly renewing their permit. As I wrote above, these things don't happen often, but readers should know the rules and be given an opportunity to make their own choices based on their understandings of the risks.

Case in point. Sonia described huge sums of pesos of successful paper-only car imports, and continued for over a year to reassure people that her process was legal and had no risks for her clients. Even though she's a very competent professional, according to her posts here on Chapala.com, her paper-only imports all got locked-down and have been shut-down, with no $ refunds since last September.

We can all look back on things Americans and Canadians did successfully for years with Aduana that broke Mexican laws, using less-than-fully legal approaches that worked for years for well-intentioned Americans and Canadians. Unfortunately, when people choose to use less than fully legal routes, what works today does not always keep working.

None of us know when the Mexican government, or which local or regional offices, will start enforcing the rules.

I sincerely hope that Sonia's clients either get their money refunded as she and John repeatedly promised in internet posts, or they get good pedimentos. It's now 6 months later, and according to their forum posts and their FB posts their clients still do not have either their $$ or their pedimentos, with no word on when or if the problems can be resolved.

Sonia is a facilitator with a long history of helping people, but even she has been getting burned this past 6 months, using non-standard procedures that she sincerely thought would keep working. This is a very real example of how even well-intentioned and well-meaning people with lots of experience, can get caught in the changing ways when the Mexican government sometimes ignores, but then later begins enforcing Mexican law, with no warnings.

Readers deserve to know the rules, hear about the risks (high or low), know the possible consequences, listen to people's stories of what worked in the past, and then make their own choices.

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Thank you, Sonia. I truly hope that your post will help people understand that there is no such law and has never been such a law. However, if some folks still want to believe in a non existent law and spend hundreds of unnecessary dollars a year maintaining registration and automobile insurance in the country from which they came, go for it.

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Jalisco traffic law says that your vehicle must be legally registered. It is there. If you would like to take the time to look it up, that is up to you. I have and I have read it, as others have. I don't have it in front of me and am not going to look it up at this time.

Again, so someone got away with not having someone check their registration status. Does it really matter? Is it still right to ignore the law because someone got away with it?

Your TIP gives you permission to have the vehicle here, as long as it is legally here. It also says you are not allowed to sell it while in Mexico, and you know that people do it all the time.

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Well in the United States of Mexico, like the United States of America, constitutional law trumps federal law, federal law trumps state law, state law trumps municipal law, municipal law trumps "community" law (fracs and condo regimes). Don't fall for the snowy job. His "friends" seems to attract misfortune like a hummingbird feeder attracts bats. Have you noticed that none of his "friends" never asked for, or heeded his advice?

RV gringo must provide the name of the insurance company who tries to deny claims because of inactive plates. I will write to them to confirm this. If it is true, the public must be warned. I suspect your translation of extremely fine print on the insurance document is inaccurate - what they are saying is that they will not provide coverage for a vehicle which has been reported as stolen int the U.S./Canada and then brought into Mexico.

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I know PV has a law that states you need to have valid plates. (I think Rolly quoted this)

Every insurance company has different contract. One might allow something one might not. Someone with Lewis and Lewis look at the English Contract and see if it says you need valid registration. I just looked at my last two contracts from two different insurance companies and they are very different. So one company may say OK and another may not like no current registration. Why do folks assume all insurance contracts are the same?

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Perhaps there is confusion due to the interpretation of what "legally registered" means as the term is bandied about here. If the vehicle is a foreign plated vehicle in Mexico on a TIP, there is a difference between the vehicle's original title (ie. being able to prove you legally own that vehicle and originally purchased it in the foreign country it came from) and whether the annual "taxes" have been paid to keep the vehicle legal to be on the roads in those jurisdictions that care.

Therefore, I am of the opinion that if you have a vehicle here that you legally own and on a valid (ie. unexpired) TIP AND do NOT plan on driving that vehicle on the roads in the US or Canada that CARE whether the vehicle is currently paid up with it's road taxes - there should be no need to keep the plates current.

I must remind people though that if a "Tourist" insurance policy is on the foreign vehicle (such as a policy sourced through Lewis & Lewis), I have been led to believe that one of the conditions is that there is still a NOB policy covering that vehicle. This is so the Mexican underwriter doesn't have to prove that the vehicle is "legally" owned by the insured and can issue a policy over the internet - in "effect' a rider to an existing NOB policy. If you notice when filling out the online application form, there is a place where that question is asked. What I do is just keep the NOB policy in effect but suspend it by retaining only the comprehensive part of the policy as if the vehicle were temporarily off the road and in storage - just a few dollars a month. Then when I head back north across the border, it is just a phone call to reinstate the PL & PD portion of the NOB policy (mandatory in some jurisdictions and you are subject to severe fines if caught driving on the road with no insurance unlike here in Mexico so far).

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Wow, are we all way off on this subject. Seems that we are making our own interpretation of the law and what legally registered means. We all have access to the same information and can do our own research. I appreciate the opportunity to take part in this topic. Thanks for all the input.

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Are Sarge and I the only ones who have bothered to read the Jalisco traffic laws? Yes, they are in Spanish and are very long and involved, but the answer to this confusion lies there, not here.

However, it does seem that some folks do want to make their own interpretations for their own convenience. Good luck with that.

If you use common sense, it would probably tell you that it is illegal to operate a vehicle on public streets and highways if that vehicle is not legal to drive in its home territory. That is covered by reciprocity, and sometimes has its limits too.

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The title of this thread says it all: "Knowing a consensus here is a moot point "

Fortunately, we don't all have to march in lock-step with the few who insist that it is all-one-way or all-the-other-way.

Unlike CBviajero's opinion above that our friends and acquaintances must follow our advice, I'm pretty pleased that my friends and acquaintances think for themselves, making their own choices and running their own lives.

Just like CBviajero wrote publicly about how he chose to not use Sonia & John's paper-only car import process because he did not trust the offer or the risks, each of us can choose the risks or security of whether to keep our vehicles registered back home, or not, or we can choose to use the middle-path of SD registration - depending on what Mexican state we live in.

Correcting one other error from above about how Federal law somehow must always trumps state law, readers should know:
Just as the US Constitution & Federal laws have limited jurisdiction over only some items and some areas, the Mexican Constitution also gives the states the rights to make their own laws governing things like state taxes and like state registration requirements for vehicles.

As applies to the original topic, Mexican laws and enforcement of those laws are clear that:

If we operate a foreign-plated vehicle in a Mexican state that requires maintaining current registration back in our foreign country, then it is illegal to operate that vehicle with expired US plates and expired US registration, regardless of Article 106.

When we operate a vehicle illegally, some (not all) Mexican insurance companies continue to use that as a legal justification to deny coverage of accidents or losses.

Each of us gets to choose how we live relative to the laws, rules, & relative risks, where some of us choose to follow the law.

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And RV, I think I read that Jalisco law says it is unlawful to drive a vehicle with "EXPIRED" tags. There were no play on words, and there were no exceptions. If your U.S. or Canada tags expired, then the vehicle can not be "legally" driven on any Jalisco public way. Besides the fact that the import law says your vehicle must be LEGALLY registered in your home territory.

Like you said. It is all documented and available for anyone to read. You can decide for yourself how you want to interpret it. Hey, people have been driving around on expired tags for years, so why not take a chance.

Adios.

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And RV, I think I read that Jalisco law says it is unlawful to drive a vehicle with "EXPIRED" tags. There were no play on words, and there were no exceptions. If your U.S. or Canada tags expired, then the vehicle can not be "legally" driven on any Jalisco public way. Besides the fact that the import law says your vehicle must be LEGALLY registered in your home territory.

Like you said. It is all documented and available for anyone to read. You can decide for yourself how you want to interpret it. Hey, people have been driving around on expired tags for years, so why not take a chance.

Adios.

According to a local well known lawyer the only place in Jalisco that it is illegal to drive an imported vehicle with expired tags is in Puerto Vallarta. That city brought in such a law but it isn't enforced.

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