If you’re observant you might notice the extremely large percentage of South Dakota-plated vehicles in Cabo. In fact, you might draw the conclusion that the entire state drives down here for the winter season. But what you might not know is that many of those vehicles belong to people who don’t live in South Dakota. I’d even bet some of them have never been to that state. Yet, their cars are registered there. What’s up with that?
Once you have a home here, whether as your full time residence or a vacation property, you’ll want a car. How else are you going to get to the beach? You can buy a car here, of course, but many people prefer to bring one down from the US or Canada. Once the car is here you may drive it around Cabo perfectly legally, as long as the foreign plates are current. Your car insurance, already a bargain by US standards, is actually cheaper if the car bears foreign plates. So instead of converting the car’s nationality, many expatriates prefer to continue to use the plates from the U.S..
Here’s the thing: some of the states involved have made procedures for renewing those license plates annoying, to say the least. Driving to Cabo is a blast (see prior blogs), but not something you want to be forced to do on a regular basis. And, let’s face it, some of the cars don’t here aren’t really up to the task. Yet, if your state requires an inspection or smog test, you have no choice. To make matters worse, some states such as California, require a local insurance policy even if the car is out of state. Ouch!
In the past most locals followed a predictable course: they just ignored the whole thing and continued to drive the car on expired plates. For others, who wanted to at least put on a good show a lively business grew up providing forged stickers and registration papers. They might not have fooled a real CHP agent, but were good enough to convince the local cops. Some were able to nationalize their cars through a process called ‘importation’, but the bureaucracy involved is arcane, time consuming, and expensive.
And then someone discovered South Dakota. South Dakota evidently is very willing to sell you a valid registration and license plates even if you don’t live there. They require no smog test, no inspection, and no certificate of insurance. Best of all, the renewal is only $38. These are valid registrations, and recognized throughout Mexico.
The intrepid Cabo resident who discovered this and learned how to navigate the system is Bob Jankovics, and he has created a business of processing the paperwork for the transfer of registration. Once he’s gotten you your plates the renewal process is relatively simple and straight-forward. We used this to get my husband’s Suburban out of limbo. We’d previously paid someone to transfer ownership to Mexico, but they botched the job. So we were stuck: no US plates (they’d been surrendered), and our Mexican plates weren’t valid and couldn’t be renewed. No one could figure out how to straighten out the paperwork. We contracted with Bob J, who only took a week or so to deliver our brand new South Dakota license plates. A few weeks later our new registration papers arrived in the mail through our California forwarding service. We’ve even renewed the plates since then with no problem. All perfectly legit.
The Cabo locals (we don’t use the term ex-pat) are absolutely ingenious at figuring out solutions to all the little details of living for U.S. citizens in Mexico. The use of South Dakota plates is no exception, I’ve been told there are well over 600 of us so far and more converting every week. As a public service, here’s how you can join the crowd.
Bob Jankovics can be reached at bobjankovics@gmail.com, or local cell phone (624) 129-9232. He prefers to meet you at Costco to go over the paperwork; it’s convenient for all parties since this isn’t a real business for him.
And if there is someone driving one of these cars who really is from South Dakota, I’d love to hear from you!
Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of REALTY EXECUTIVES Los Cabos. A Certified Home Marketing Specialist, she has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for nine years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine and the real estate co-ordinator for the Los Cabos Now program on CaboMil FM (www.cabomil.com.mx). You can read more of her articles on www.reloscabos.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541.
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© 2010 Carol S. Billups
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