(Photo opposite: Directions posted outside the Transit Authority in the Dominican Republic) Nine years ago I bought a second-hand SUV in the DR. It wasn’t the first vehicle I had bought: thirteen years ago I bought a VW Beetle from the same vendor whose house in the centre of Puerto Plata we had purchased. At that time I went through the process of getting the car’s matricula (log book) registered in my name. It was a cumbersome, lengthy and somewhat arcane process in those days, involving publication of intent to change ownership in a newspaper advert and a visit to Santiago for the police quimico to issue a certification of the chassis and engine numbers. Plus lots of official stamps appended to reams of official paper. Delays occurred due to misplacing of the documents which had to go to the capital, Santo Domingo, plus the usual breakdowns of computers and/or computer systems and/or the electricity supply but………….. eighteen months later I had my matricula in my own name!
The next vehicle I purchased turned out to be a piece of junk. Knowing I would not be its proud owner for eighteen months I decided to sell it as quickly as possible. This was achieved despite the fact that the matricula was not in my name. The third vehicle I purchased is my current one, the SUV bought nine years ago and it was and still is providing sterling service. The owner was an Irish mechanic who was working in the DR at the time and who had professionally and lovingly nurtured this 1988 vintage vehicle. What he hadn’t done, however, was to get the matricula transferred to his name when he had purchased it. Neither had the person from whom the Irish mechanic bought it – a US citizen who ran a safari tour company. In fact the name on the matricula was that of the Dominican dealer who had imported the car and sold it to Mr. Safari.
I happily drove my SUV for several months before presenting myself to the Dirección General de Impuestos Internos to apply for the vehicle to be put in my name and pay the transfer taxes. This was neither a good example of procrastination nor a lack of funds so much as ‘other priorities’. We were heavily involved with assisting a fellow expat who had been wrongly jailed at the time and his need for assistance was of greater immediacy than my need to get my car documentation correct. However, when things had quietened somewhat at the jail (read: a period free from riots) I duly got all my paperwork together and along I went to pay the taxes and transfer the document, confident in the knowledge that I had done this before with the VW Beetle so I knew what the procedure would be.
Wrong! Apparently the VW transfer with all its stamps, paperwork and visits had been the simple version! This was because the vendor of the vehicle had her name on the vehicle’s matricula. The SUV vendor, on the other hand, did not, nor the person he had purchased from. Without a copy of the cedula (ID card) of the person named on the matricula, the transfer could not take place. Mistakenly, I thought that it would be relatively easy to track down the dealer to ask for a copy of his cedula…………….
The dealership was in Santiago, a town about 75 minutes drive from Puerto Plata where I live so I naturally telephoned first. This was where the fun started. For the purposes of this article I shall call the dealer Cesar Brito. Cesar, it transpired, had sold the dealership and retired a few years before my call. The last known address the new dealership had for him was in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic and some four hours drive distant. Undaunted (you need to be undaunted if you live in the DR) I asked a friend living in the capital to track down Sñr. Brito and get a copy of his cedula.
Weeks later I discovered that poor Cesar had not enjoyed a very long retirement: according to my friend in the Capital he had died. And dead men don’t have cedulas…………..Back I went to the DGII (the tax office) and explained that there was no way I could get a copy of the cedula of the person named on the matricula because its owner was no more. Now, I thought, they will find a way to let me pay the taxes and get the matricula put in my name. Wrong again! This time I was told that since Cesar had inconveniently died I would need the cedula of his heir, his eldest son.
Back to my friend in the Capital! And after a few weeks ’He doesn’t have family here; they all moved to the US years ago’. So back to the DGII ‘He doesn’t have family here; they’re all in the US’.
‘Can’t you contact them in the US?’
‘I don’t even know which state they live in. Where would you suggest I start?’ Much shrugging of shoulders, followed by discussion with supervisor. I suggested that maybe payment of an extra fee would ease the difficulties (you don’t talk about bribes here, but ‘extra fees’ often smooth seemingly insurmountable problems). But, without the cedula it couldn’t be done, extra fee or no extra fee. So, that was that. The matricula remained in Cesar Brito’s name RIP and I happily continued to drive the vehicle whilst keeping a copy of the bill of sale from the Irish mechanic to myself in the glove compartment in case I was ever stopped.
In 2000 we had a change of Government and by 2002 it was becoming clear that their political platform was ‘extra fees’ and since the tax office was staffed by at least some political appointees, I thought a return visit might be worthwhile. By this time I had a new matricula and a different number plate (they are issued every four years as a method of obtaining tax revenue) but the new matricula was still in the deceased’s name. So I returned to the tax office feeling I should have brought an audio version of the story with me so I could just plug it in and play…………..But even stereo would have made no difference.
‘Can’t be done without a copy of the cedula’.
We had read this particular chapter before! I continued to happily drive the SUV apart from the three weeks when it was off the road having a new chassis fitted. The frame had basically succumbed to the salt in the sea air and was a series of holes held together by rust such that our mechanic was concerned that one day the whole thing would just collapse in the road. He did a splendid job and after his ministrations my SUV drove like a Sherman tank.
Fast forward to 2004 when we had another change of Government. This one, however, promised Governmental austerity and a full frontal assault on corruption – hardly fruitful ground for ‘extra fees’ or so I thought, so I didn’t return. Not until November 2007 when I read in a newspaper of a Governmental push to claim back taxes on car transfers and an amnesty period until January 2008. The supervisor at the tax office, a political appointee of the ‘austerity, anti-corruption’ Government, told me confidentially that she could get me a copy of Cesar Brito’s cedula…………for an ‘extra fee’. I was ecstatic and so would Cesar have been had he seen his photo ID on the cedula because, given the circumstances, he really looked very well indeed!
But this was only the start of the circumvention. The supervisor had explained to me that I would need a lawyer who was a ‘friend’ (nudge, wink). What he needed to do was to make out a new contract of sale whereby the vehicle was sold directly from Cesar Brito to me, thus removing both Mr. Safari and the Irish mechanic from the line of succession. We have lived in Puerto Plata 15+ years so we certainly have lawyers who are ‘friends’ and when I went to one he certainly needed little explanation of what was required, so the supervisor at the tax office must have had an endless supply of dead men’s cedulas…………..
The following week I collected the contract which the friendly lawyer had also arranged to be signed by a Notary Public as required by law as well as by the dead vendor, Cesar Brito………don’t ask! The friendly lawyer’s colleague had been wonderfully helpful because she had paid over the stamp money for me when going to get her chassis and engine numbers looked at. So the next part of the procedure was similar to that of thirteen years ago – a visit to Santiago for the police quimico to issue a certification of the chassis and engine numbers.
My other half volunteered for this task and probably wished he hadn’t. When he arrived at the police certification centre he found it had moved from where it had been thirteen years previously! Intrepidly, he tracked down the new office where he discovered that one more piece of bureaucratic paperwork was required: a slip from the DGII in Santiago. This would mean leaving the certification centre and……… who knows? They could move it again in his absence…… so he enquired whether by some remote chance the certification centre happened to have a spare copy of the bureaucratic paperwork and………….lo and behold for 100 pesos they did! Then all proceeded swimmingly until the police quimico went hunting for the chassis number. The sharp amongst you will recall that years back the SUV was off the road for three weeks whilst the mechanic made and fitted a new chassis…………………to which he had neglected to attach the numbered chassis plate! ‘Can’t be done without a chassis number plate?’ Fortunately, no. Living here 15 years helps with the instantly plausible stories. That and mangling the Spanish tenses so that it was a little uncertain exactly when this work had taken place. Don’t forget the dead Cesar had sold me this vehicle last December, not nine years ago!
So, all done and dusted? Not quite! Surely you weren’t expecting instant gratification? This IS the DR after all………..Unfortunately the certification centre had insufficient staff to process the paperwork that day. ‘Come back to Santiago tomorrow’. Fine but…………..that’s another whole day spent on this task. However, as stated above 15 years of residence in the DR brings certain advantages one of which is having friends in towns other than where we live. My other half paid a quick trip to a lawyer friend in Santiago and she agreed to collect the certification mañana. Of course first he had to authorise her to do so by giving her a copy of his cedula…………
The following day we checked and friendly lawyer had indeed collected the certification which she duly dropped off at the home of other half’s golfing partner, also in Santiago and finally the next weekend, after golf, my other half came away triumphantly clutching the certification. We cheered!
So now it is time for me to spring into action. Back to the tax office I went carrying ALL the required documentation…………I thought. I had the quimico’s certification, the contract of sale between Cesar and myself, the original matricula, my cedula, Cesar’s cedula and untold copies of all of these documents. Our friendly supervisor (the specialist in dead men’s cedulas) proceeded to authorise my documentation when all of a sudden her face fell. She pointed to the back of the matricula and said in a disappointed voice ‘You didn’t get Cesar to sign the back of the matricula’. It would have been churlish to have pointed out that Cesar, six feet under, wasn’t exactly up to signing anything. But what a bi-polar experience – this good lady who had got me the fake cedula on payment of a bribe…….er……fee now believed that Cesar actually lived. I thought maybe we were being overheard so I responded with ‘So sorry, I must be getting forgetful now I’m getting older’. The age card works wonders here, playing the little old lady with arthritis is even more likely to elicit respect and help. So the supervisor ’helped’ me. She took a cursory look at the cedula SHE had produced and she………..faked Cesar’s signature.
She also worked out what the transfer taxes were – 1200 pesos (about US$35). Then all I had to do was line up in a very long queue and wait to pay it. This is where the arthritis came in: I gave my sob story and supervisor passed all the paperwork to Junior, the clerical officer responsible for receiving payments. He was all of 5 feet distant the other side of a cramped partition. She even told him to hurry up about it! So I waited seated whilst the reams of paperwork were minutely examined one more time, the tax payment was accepted, a receipt was issued and voila…………a new matricula in my very own name!
It only took nine years! But you have to set these things in perspective. Some of the indigenous population who lost their homes to Hurricane David are only now having housing made available to them. And Hurricane David was in 1979.
And the current registration plate number on my (note MY) matricula? 007007. Oh indeed, James Bond is alive and well …………..and hunting down dead men who DO sign cedulas in the Dominican Republic!
Ginnie Bedggood’s story of relocating to the Dominican Republic in 1992 Quisqueya: Mad Dogs and English Couple is published as an ebook on Offshore Wave. To buy the ebook click here:
For more information visit her website at Ginnie Bedggood - book author, writer, expat Dominican Republic
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