BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

Monday, October 26, 1998 Online Edition 129 Business Briefs

Registering and nationalizing a car not without headaches

By WENDY GRIFFIN

(Last of two parts)

Many retirees who come to Honduras would like to bring their car or truck with them. Most people import their trucks either by ship through Puerto Cortes or overland through Aguas Calientes, coming from Guatemala. When a car is first brought into Honduras, it can stay here 90 days without paying duties and taxes. This can be extended for a second 90-day period.

At this point you must either leave the country with your vehicle and bring it back in, or you must nationalize the car. In order to nationalize it, the first step is to pay the customs import duties, which are based on the value of the car.

After you pay import duties, there are still procedures to register your car, a necessary step in order to get Honduran license plates. How good or bad this procedure is depends on your lawyer. One American friend in Tegucigalpa said registering his car was worse than the procedure to get residency, requiring many visits to the lawyer. Others in Trujillo were able to arrange this easily. Ask for recommendations of lawyers who can help you with this.

Even after your car or truck is nationalized, you may still have headaches. After two years, you must pay registration fees (matricula). One American citizen went to pay these but the officials objected, saying, "Your vehicle number does not match the number stamped on your car."

So he went back to the government official who had signed the papers, authorizing the nationalization of the car with this registration number. This official admitted verbally that he may have copied one number wrong. But to produce a written document saying this, it would cost Lps. 700. So, be sure to carefully examine the numbers on your documents as you go through customs and nationalization procedures.

When the man who paid Lps. 700 to get his paperwork straightened out complained to a friend, this friend just looked him in the eye and said, "if you got out of that office paying less than Lps. 1,000 consider yourself lucky."

To avoid all of these problems of going through customs and nationalizing your car, it is possible to buy used cars and trucks here. Although Hondurans frequently complain about the high cost of used vehicles, used trucks in the Lps. 20,000 to Lps. 40,000 ($1,400 to $3,000) range are available here. Moreover, vehicles sold here are often more suited to bad roads than most sold in the United States.

Unfortunately, buying used cars are not without their drawbacks. A growing number of used vehicles often turn out to be stolen.

So whether you bring your own car down or buy one here, be cautious, ask lots of questions, check all documents and if possible consult with Honduran friends. Learn all you can about the procedures before doing it, and then you will be more aware of the problems and charges that might arise.

Monday, October 19, 1998 Online Edition 128 Business Briefs

Bringing a car into Honduras full of surprises

By WENDY GRIFFIN

(First of two parts)

Before a fiend imported his car into Honduras by ship, he called his Honduran lawyer to ask what he would have to do. His lawyer said, "Just take the title of ownership of your car, get the form that lets you have the car in the country for 90 days without paying taxes, and you can pay the taxes later."

This sounded so easy, my friend thought he would be done in about an hour. It took 8 hours and he was told that he was lucky to be able to get everything done in one day.

To send a car by ship, either with Crowley American from Port Everglades, Miami, Florida or Carnival from Morgan City, LA, you should receive a Bill of Lading (B/L). However, this is not prepared until the car is actually put on the ship, and you must leave your car several days ahead of time.

My friends's original B/L was sent to his home address in Canada. Fortunately, the shipping line arranged to fax him a copy of his B/L that permitted him to get his car out of customs, but he still needed the originals to register the car in Honduras (nacionalizar el carro).

When you get your B/L, note what is on it. Some shipping companies refuse to take responsibility for the contents of a truck and do not list them. This gives the importer two problems. First, you must pay duty separately for the contents and for the truck. Also, if something is missing, you are just out of luck. All contents of the cabin of my friend's truck, such as a few hundred dollars worth of tools, were missing.

CUSTOMS AGENT NEEDED

Arriving in Puerto Cortes, he was told that an agente aduanero or customs agent was needed to help him with all the paperwork. Be careful. Some customs agents work out a deal with port personnel to let your truck in for less money. However, then you do not have all the forms you need to nationalize the car and to re-register in each year. One acquaintance had to pay bribes for 12 years to register his car because he had no paperwork to show how it was imported.

To get your car, you need its title. Customs agents are accustomed to seeing U.S. titles that are separate from registration. Seeing Canadian registration, which are not separate from the title, can confuse them. In the case of my friend it was worse, because documents from the Province of Quebec regarding cars are all in French, which of course, no one in Puerto Cortes could read. Unless your Spanish is very good, do not attempt to do this procedure alone.

Once you have a custom agent and the B/L, you must pay $20 for a road-use tax and also pay to get the form to have the car in the country 90 days. My friend waited one hour for the receipt for the $20 tax, although the cashier was right there and he was the only one in line.

With this he began the shuffling back and forth between the port and the customs office. Just the form to import the contents of the truck required 43 signatures. He had to pay an agricultural tax to have the truck fumigated. To get all the signatures to have the port person release the truck took from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., with 10 minutes for lunch. At least the wooden glorieta restaurant in front of the Customs Office has good food.

When he finally got the truck (but not the key to the back cab, which had been stolen), he was advised to go immediately to the gas station. It is reportedly common to have the gas siphoned out of the gas tank while in transit.