Annual vehicle registration

by CanuckBob Mon Dec 31, 2012 10:34 am

Can someone please post the process for the annual vehicle registration? When, where, what paperwork is required and approximately how much the fees are?

Mucho gracias and Feliz Anos Nuevo

by Hensley Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:50 am

Take last years paperwork or just write down the plate number on a piece of paper, then go to Chapala and turn down Dellagado (sp) street, which is the second one after you turn at the light, take it almost all the way to Cristinia park it is 1/2 block from the park in the last block on your right.

Go end of Jan or sometime in Feb for the discount, if you go early it is not as crowded.

Fee is around $400p

Take a seat and play musical chairs until you are at the front seat, then it is your turn to go to the window.

by hound dog Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:26 pm

I drive a 2004 Nissan Xtrail and your fee may vary according to what you drive.

You pay at Hacienda in Chapala which is the agency located where Hensley indicated. They just moved out there last year from centro so beware of local instructions. What I take in each year is a copy of my receipt for my previous refrendo payment and the sooner you pay the better for two reasons:
* The sooner you pay the bigger the discount you receive for early payment. I always pay as soon after the turn of the year as possible for the 30% discount so I paid a net $331MXN last January 2nd instead of the gross amount due after the discount period of $446MXN.
* It is typical of locals around here to wait until the last minute of the discount period to pay their registration so by going very early you avoid the crowds you will have to endure by procrastinating. That musical chairs seating line Hensley alludes to is a pain in the butt when the office is crowded with last minute procrastinators.

As an interesting aside, until 2012, the refrendo was far more expensive. For instance, in 2011, I paid $2,521MXN after receiving the same 30% discount.

I have found that by going in at my first opportunity, I can pay both my car registration and property tax bill the same day in short order with no hassle and no crowds. Of course, you pay your property taxes at city hall and the catastro will have booths set up there to take your money. Then on the same day I head into Ajijic to pay my annual water bill. Be sure to take along your passport, visa and a current utility bill (preferably CFE) just in case they are needed. You never know in Mexico.

Old geezers with IPANAM Cards are supposed to get a substantial discount but Chapala refuses to give the discount to foreigners. I understand Jocotopec and Poncitlan give the old folks discount in accordance with custom. I know that in Chiapas we get a 50% discount on property taxes and water every year with no hassle.

by Rosa Venus Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:17 pm

As Hensley mentioned, they've really made it easy. I renewed an out-of-country friend's registration with only her license plate number. It's all computerized and automated now, and they'll tell you how much you owe (and if there are any outstanding fees or unpaid tickets), etc. I believe the "early-bird" discount is all the way through March, but if not, January and February for sure.

If I recall, there is an additional discount given if you bring in a recent smog certificate, but don't hold me to that.

by hound dog Mon Dec 31, 2012 6:33 pm

Rosa Venus wrote:As Hensley mentioned, they've really made it easy. I renewed an out-of-country friend's registration with only her license plate number. It's all computerized and automated now, and they'll tell you how much you owe (and if there are any outstanding fees or unpaid tickets), etc. I believe the "early-bird" discount is all the way through March, but if not, January and February for sure.

If I recall, there is an additional discount given if you bring in a recent smog certificate, but don't hold me to that.

Good point Rosa Venus. We are normally living in Chiapas in January and we have a friend pay our refrendo, property taxes, water bill and P.O. Box and she has not been hassled. It´s good to know that for the vehicle registration you only need to tell them the license number on your vehicle.

It is true that the auto registration discount extends for some time after Jaunuary 1st and a lesser discount may apply after the 30% discount period has elapsed. The reason I pay at the beginning of the year if possible is that there are no crowds then and paying is a piece of cake. Wait until just before the end of the discount period and the payment process can mean an interminable wait in line with countless others trying to beat the clock.

By the way, in Jalisco you actually have until July of each year to pay the refrendo before you are out of compliance with the law if you are willing to pay the full amount of the fee. However, since where we live in Chiapas is near the Guatemala border and there are always numerous checkpoints down there manned by anyone from the army to the federal police to immigration to customs to The Zapatistas, I don´t want to have to explain to these guys why my auto registration and Tarjeta de Circulacion appear to have lapsed. Sometimes there are communications difficulties and communications difficulties near the border leading into Guatelmala and all the way up to Central Mexico can take a life of their own very quickly if one´s official interviewer is irritable at the moment you pull up and stop so good, clean documentation is in order.

You won´t need official documentation to pass through a Zapatista checkpoint but you will want to be prepared to contribute to the Emiliano Zapata Memorial Fund to aid the indigenous poor in the region. This is a good cause so don´t fight it if you come upon one of these inconvenient encumbrances. You can, however, refuse to pay with the consequence that you will be obliged to turn around and return to whatever point from which you started your journey.

by Parker Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:54 am

hound dog wrote:Rosa Venus wrote:As Hensley mentioned, they've really made it easy. I renewed an out-of-country friend's registration with only her license plate number. It's all computerized and automated now, and they'll tell you how much you owe (and if there are any outstanding fees or unpaid tickets), etc. I believe the "early-bird" discount is all the way through March, but if not, January and February for sure.

If I recall, there is an additional discount given if you bring in a recent smog certificate, but don't hold me to that.

Good point Rosa Venus. We are normally living in Chiapas in January and we have a friend pay our refrendo, property taxes, water bill and P.O. Box and she has not been hassled. It´s good to know that for the vehicle registration you only need to tell them the license number on your vehicle.

It is true that the auto registration discount extends for some time after Jaunuary 1st and a lesser discount may apply after the 30% discount period has elapsed. The reason I pay at the beginning of the year if possible is that there are no crowds then and paying is a piece of cake. Wait until just before the end of the discount period and the payment process can mean an interminable wait in line with countless others trying to beat the clock.

By the way, in Jalisco you actually have until July of each year to pay the refrendo before you are out of compliance with the law if you are willing to pay the full amount of the fee. However, since where we live in Chiapas is near the Guatemala border and there are always numerous checkpoints down there manned by anyone from the army to the federal police to immigration to customs to The Zapatistas, I don´t want to have to explain to these guys why my auto registration and Tarjeta de Circulacion appear to have lapsed. Sometimes there are communications difficulties and communications difficulties near the border leading into Guatelmala and all the way up to Central Mexico can take a life of their own very quickly if one´s official interviewer is irritable at the moment you pull up and stop so good, clean documentation is in order.

You won´t need official documentation to pass through a Zapatista checkpoint but you will want to be prepared to contribute to the Emiliano Zapata Memorial Fund to aid the indigenous poor in the region. This is a good cause so don´t fight it if you come upon one of these inconvenient encumbrances. You can, however, refuse to pay with the consequence that you will be obliged to turn around and return to whatever point from which you started your journey.

You know “Dawg” we have very similar attitudes, play the cards you’re dealt.

by CanuckBob Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:15 am

Thank for the info everyone. I know where that office is as I have registered two vehicles there. Does anyone know what time they open in the morning?

by hound dog Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:29 am

You know “Dawg” we have very similar attitudes, play the cards you’re dealt.

I don´t know where you are from, Parker, but in the small South Alabama town I was raised in in the 40s and 50s before the interstate highway system alleviated the problem, crooked cops preying on transients, especially yankee transients and really especially on African American transients with northern license plates, was common and we, as locals, whether white or black, turned the other cheek because, after all, they weren´t messing with us. Sound familiar?

In those days it was not uncommon for young local black men to migrate to places such as Detroit and Chicago for work versus unemployment or insecure yard work for peanuts locally just like Mexicans try to do by migrating to the U.S. today. Back then, Detroit was booming and many of these migrants found jobs in the auto industry at , then, good wages, bought fancy Lincolns and Chryslers at employee prices and would drive them back down to small town Alabama to show off their "success" to those they had left behind. It´s the same story the world over. Well, let me tell you those fancy cars with Michigan plates driven by young black men were bait to the sleazy local cops like squirrels running through an open field to a hawk. Just like today in Mexico, nobody, in those days in rural Alabama had any respect for a local cop as those jobs paid virtually nothing and nobody but a suspected retard would take that on as a career.

The interstate highway system did a lot to mitigate this problem. There was a time when it seemed just about every podunk town in Georgia was a speed trap hauling in yankees on their way to Florida. Their favorite ploy was the sudden change in the speed limit from 60MPH to 10MPH once the unsuspecting driver entered local "police juisdiction" while still driving among the piney woods with no sign of a town. A yankee plated car doing 11MPH was fair game or, if the town coffers were running dry, they´d simply make up traffic violations for the revenue potential and, if you were from New York on your way to Florida, you were not getting through that Georgia hell hole until you had paid the unofficial toll for having had the temerity to have driven through there in the first place. To whom were you going to complain? The totally corrupt Georgia state authorities? J. Edgar Hoover´s corrupt FBI? God? Pay the damn fine and move on being grateful they´re not sending you to an indefinite stay at Parchman Farm.

Dawg did not have to move to Mexico to discover corruption or try to learn how to abide with it for better or worse. It´s the elephant in the room so try not to get squashed underfoot.

by hound dog Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:39 am

[quote="CanuckBob"]Thank for the info everyone. I know where that office is as I have registered two vehicles there. Does anyone know what time they open in the morning?[/quote]

Dawg hopes to be there at 10:00AM tomorrow. If I see a dude with a shiny noggin and ostentatious mustache, I´ll say hello.

by David Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:42 am

I believe they open at 8:30AM.

by hound dog Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:48 am

David wrote:I believe they open at 8:30AM.

That´s too early. You need to give them time to chat and get organized and if you walk in too early you might piss them off. For years I managed bank branches in Oakland and San Francisco and I hated clients who showed up before I´d had my coffee and harassed the staff.

by CanuckBob Wed Jan 02, 2013 7:39 pm

Went to the office in Chapala at 9:15am. Only two people in front of me. I presented them with last years papers for both vehicles. One vehicle was $330 pesos (no infractions) and the other was $555 pesos (1 infraction of $225 pesos). Was in and out in about 10 minutes. Very quick and easy.

Thanks all.

by CheenaGringo Wed Jan 02, 2013 7:55 pm

So who and what on the infraction?

by CanuckBob Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:09 pm

I blew through the photo radar on the Periferico again last week. Seems the fine is pretty instantaneous onto the vehicle registration. Saves me the trouble of paying the ticket when it arrives in the mail 6 weeks from now.......jajaja.

Oh, I did get a 50% discount on the fine for early payment.

by CheenaGringo Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:15 pm

Obviously they are not all that serious about the fines for photo radar especially when one compares with Jim's fine for no seat belt. I guess that I will have to pay attention with a rental car since it would be a real opportunity for one of the rental companies to stick it to you well after the fact.

by CanuckBob Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:18 pm

It isn't hidden. They warn you well in advance and even show you how fast you are going. I just choose to blow through it sometimes.....like everyone in front of me and behind me.

by Rosa Venus Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:38 pm

The "eye in the sky" radar ticketing system is working well. I won't be surprised at all if I discover another one (or two) when I renew the registration. Oh well.

by hound dog Thu Jan 03, 2013 4:27 pm

Dawg paid the 2013 registration at about 11:00AM this morning. $345 Pesos and I had to wait in line for about 15 minutes. Then went and paid my 2013 property taxes with no wait at all. I was so pleased with the ease of taking care of these obligatiions, I stopped offf and had a shot of tequila at my favorite Chapala bar.

My darlin´ wife will be payimg the Chiapas property taxes at her liesure. Down there we have a house with approximately the same resale value as the one here at Lakeside but the annual property tax here is b$2,550 Pesos with no discount for old foreign farts ( an illegal discriminatory act) and down there the property tax is about $250 Pesos with the legal customary old fart discount available to all property owners - foreign or not.

Here, where they have this large foreign community, they harass foreign residents by refusing normal discounts for geezers which should be available to all and by harassing foreign geezer drivers on the local roads but this doesn´t happen in Chiapas where there is only a small foreign ommunity. Down there we are treated with respect and never singled out as suckers the way we are hereabouts.

In over six years of living and driving in San Cristóbal de Las Casas driving around with Jalisco plates, i have ever been harassed even once by local transito cops nor have I observed even one motorist having been ticketed for a moving violation and eveyone drives like a maniac down there.

by CanuckBob Thu Jan 03, 2013 4:58 pm

Mr Dawg, when in Chiapas do you frequent their local web-board with tales of paradise here in Chapala? Personally I think they should charge the foreigners triple the land taxes here just to make up for all the griping.......jajaja. I have yet to hear a story of someone being "harassed" for no reason at all. Most stories start with "I was pulled over for not wearing my seat belt....." or " I accidentally ran the red light......" or "I was going down the one way street the wrong way......." or etc., etc., etc.

Beer

by Carry Bean Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:23 pm

CanuckBob wrote:Mr Dawg, when in Chiapas do you frequent their local web-board with tales of paradise here in Chapala? Personally I think they should charge the foreigners triple the land taxes here just to make up for all the griping.......jajaja. I have yet to hear a story of someone being "harassed" for no reason at all. Most stories start with "I was pulled over for not wearing my seat belt....." or " I accidentally ran the red light......" or "I was going down the one way street the wrong way......." or etc., etc., etc.

I noticed the same thing. Not always but a lot of the time they actually were doing something to get a ticket.

by hound dog Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:24 am

[quote="CanuckBob"]Mr Dawg, when in Chiapas do you frequent their local web-board with tales of paradise here in Chapala? Personally I think they should charge the foreigners triple the land taxes here just to make up for all the griping.......jajaja. I have yet to hear a story of someone being "harassed" for no reason at all. Most stories start with "I was pulled over for not wearing my seat belt....." or " I accidentally ran the red light......" or "I was going down the one way street the wrong way......." or etc., etc., etc.
[/quote]

Good question, CB. There are no local web-boards in Chiapas utlizing the English language and, while I might attempt to converse in broken Spanish, I am not capable of writing significant comments in the Spanish language so I am incapable of posting on boards in Chiapas in order to brag about Chapala. They never heard of Chapala down there anyway so would have no idea of that about which I was speaking.

Today in the Chiapas Highlands, according to my darlin´ wife, it is somewhat cold and overcast with the good chance of copious rains. I hope that makes her miss warm fatso as a companion but I won´t lose sleep over that possibility.

Whiie Chiapas, Oaxaca, Yucatan, Quintana Roo,Tabasco and Campeche are highly policed by local, federal, immigration and customs cops, they normally don´t mess with folks except to occasionally stop them at highway checkpoints to check for proper documentation. They are almost invariably polite in requesting and reviewing your documents unless, of course, you are undocumented in which case that may "whup yo ass and deport you to Guatemala" as we say in Alabama except change that word "Guatemala" to "Mississippi".

In six years of living down there 1/2 of each year, I have never seen anyone get a traffic ticket whereas here at Lakeside, where I have lived for 12 years in the spring and summer, bullying cops are fairly commonplace.

In Alabama, the cops beat up on black folks or white folks living in trailer parks with a third grade education while in Mexico the cops beat up on everybody who pisses them off just by being there at the moment.

Who do the cops beat up in Canada? In France they like to beat up Algerians, Tunisians and folks from Ivory Coast. Take your pick.

by CheenaGringo Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:43 am

Dawg:

Actually, there is a Chiapas Travel Forum in English: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g664450-i15122-Chiapas_Southern_Mexico.html

With your command of English, extensive repetoire of stories and experience, you could probably keep those folk quite entertained! In fact you could probably get yourself designated as a "Destination Expert".

by hound dog Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:00 am

[quote="CheenaGringo"]Dawg:

Actually, there is a Chiapas Travel Forum in English: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g664450-i15122-Chiapas_Southern_Mexico.html

With your command of English, extensive repetoire of stories and experience, you could probably keep those folk quite entertained! In fact you could probably get yourself designated as a "Destination Expert".[/quote]

Thank you, Neil, for your gratuitous compliment. In South Alabama we define an "expert" as anyone who lives more than 10 miles down the road. I will, however, look up that website just for the fun of it. Thanks.

Ole boy from Auburn gets a post-graduate scholarship to Harvard and, once he arrives on the campus, he is lost looking for the admissions office. He runs across this Harvard snot on the quadrangle and inquires; "Scuse me suh, but could you perhaps tell me where the admissions office is at?" To which the Harvard snot replied, "At Harvard, we do not end our sentences with prepositions," The Auburn boy responds, "Scuse me suh, but could you please tell me where the admissions office is at, asshole?"

by CheenaGringo Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:33 am

"Most stories start with "I was pulled over for not wearing my seat belt....." or " I accidentally ran the red light......" or "I was going down the one way street the wrong way......." or etc., etc., etc."

Over on TOB, there is a classic about a NOB driver pulled over for running a red light. Where it gets really interesting is the fact that this person drove a car all the way from the border without having obtained a TIP (temporary import permit). When I read that, I immediately wondered if they left their home in Hooterville for a Sunday afternoon drive and ended up at Lake Chapala? It is my guess that this person might have lucked out by being stopped by a Transito and not a Federale. Apparently $1000MXN temporarily took care of the situation.

by CanuckBob Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:08 pm

Sounds about right and then they probably complained that they were being "hassled" by the transitos..........jajajaja.

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