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I haven't even reached Latin America yet and I've been overwhelmed by the system.
The jeep I bought before Christmas had a bank lien against it. So after I paid the guy for the jeep and took possession of it, he went down to pay off his loan. The bank called to let me know they were sending the documentation to the state licensing department and that I could pick up my title after 10 working days at one of their offices.
Today I went to the licensing office, waited in line for 45 minutes, and was told there was no such transaction in the system. Their suggestion was to go to the other licensing office closer to the location of the vehicle purchase, so I drove 20 miles out there and stood in line for another 45 minutes.
From what I could divine (the paper-pushers weren't too forthcoming), the bank sent the paperwork to the state offices in Olympia, and put the title in the name of the guy I bought the jeep from. The title is effectively frozen until that paperwork (hopefully) reaches him, at which point I have to do the title transfer again.
The problem is that we're leaving for Mexico in 9 days. Oh, and I can't take the vehicle into Mexico without being the owner (well, there are some ways around that, but they are painful). This doesn't leave much of a margin for everything working out to a happy ending. We'll see.
On a brighter note, I had a nice conversation with 3 unrelated people while standing in line. We talked for about a half an hour about travelling, mining, panning for gold, working in the Peace Corps, living in Mexico, and a whole slew of other topics. I'm finally learning to open up a bit and chat with strangers.
The jeep I bought before Christmas had a bank lien against it. So after I paid the guy for the jeep and took possession of it, he went down to pay off his loan. The bank called to let me know they were sending the documentation to the state licensing department and that I could pick up my title after 10 working days at one of their offices.
Today I went to the licensing office, waited in line for 45 minutes, and was told there was no such transaction in the system. Their suggestion was to go to the other licensing office closer to the location of the vehicle purchase, so I drove 20 miles out there and stood in line for another 45 minutes.
From what I could divine (the paper-pushers weren't too forthcoming), the bank sent the paperwork to the state offices in Olympia, and put the title in the name of the guy I bought the jeep from. The title is effectively frozen until that paperwork (hopefully) reaches him, at which point I have to do the title transfer again.
The problem is that we're leaving for Mexico in 9 days. Oh, and I can't take the vehicle into Mexico without being the owner (well, there are some ways around that, but they are painful). This doesn't leave much of a margin for everything working out to a happy ending. We'll see.
On a brighter note, I had a nice conversation with 3 unrelated people while standing in line. We talked for about a half an hour about travelling, mining, panning for gold, working in the Peace Corps, living in Mexico, and a whole slew of other topics. I'm finally learning to open up a bit and chat with strangers.
posted by John at
7:58 PM
2 Comments:
I persevered and won. Though the original seller wouldn't return my phone calls or e-mails for a couple of days, I was finally able to pick up the title from him and transfer the Jeep into my name this morning.
Mexico, here we come!
Man, that was pretty hard-earned, huh? Gotta love paperwork...
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