Hello everyone, My family and I will be coming to the Cancun area in a couple weeks and will need to buy a quality used car. I know this have been covered here in the past but I've failed at finding the info I need through the search option. I'm an American citizen and I understand that I should buy a nationalized car, what are the steps involved in making the purchase? Do I need to get a lawyer involved to handle the paperwork and registration as we did in Costa Rica? Any other thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Joe
Welcome to the forum! I'll try and answer best I can since no one has stepped up yet. You definitely don't need a lawyer for this. We've bought two used cars since we've been here and it's fairly straightforward, although both times I've let my wife deal with it and haven't asked the detail I do know that I could only put it in my own name if I had a valid visa. Things are simpler now that there is no tenencia and it's just a case of changing the registration document. When buying a used car do make sure that there are no outstanding loans or tenencias on it as you may well inherit the liability for them. Hopefully someone else will offer better info than I can.
Steve's got two times more experience with this than I have, since I've never bought a used car here, but to just add a little to what he said, tenencia is an annual tax on cars: this tax is not charged on used cars which had their tenencias paid through 2011. Starting with 2012 models, this tax has been imposed each year, in my experience. If this is the case, buying a 2011 or older car, if the taxes have been paid, will save you a considerable, annual sum.
Back n 2008 when we bought our nationalized car, even with an FM3 (needed an FM2), we could not register the car in our name although the title is in our name. The vehicle and the insurance had to be in the name of a Mexican national. Has this changed? V, were you able to register your new car in your own name before you got your FM2 equivalent?
Thank you all for the info. I think I may be putting the cart in front of the horse here. We're moving to Mexico and want to buy a car as soon as we land and therefor will not yet have a FM2 or 3. We don't have any friends in the area to register the car in their name for us, so how should we proceed? Would we buy the car, obtain the title in my name and then wait to register in until later? And what would be the best way to determine if there's a lien or loan against the vehicle? This is my second international move and I've got to tell you that this forum is great, I wish I could have found something like this when we were planning out move to Costa Rica 5 years ago. Thank you all again for the bounty of great information you've put on this forum! Joe
