Letter of Good Conduct and Guarantee possible catch 22?

botemon

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Jun 28, 2008
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Well it's that time again to renew our Permanent Residencia and I can't tell you how excited we are to go through this again!!! NOT! We pretty much have a plan (thanks to DR1) and I will report back as to our progress later.
Here is a potential problem. Our "Perms" just expired a couple months ago. My wife left the country for a month and when she returned her Perm had just expired. I read "here" about Migration and Customs confiscating an expired Residencia cards while entering the country...and that's exactly what happened to her. (On a side note, we took a trip to Panama and only brought our valid Cedulas to the airport. No problem leaving or re-entering the Republic)!
Next week we will begin the 1st steps of the process and will be obtaining the Letter of Good Conduct (we will do ourselves) and the letter of Guarantee...(we will use a lawyer for this). I have my physical Residencia card and Cedula, but she only has her Cedula. Does anyone see a "catch 22" here if she does not possess the physical Residencia card or even a copy of it? Anyone been down this road?
Thanks in advance! Stay Tuned!
Respectfully.
 

botemon

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Jun 28, 2008
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Long story short is we did not need the resedencia card to do this. Only Cedula.
 

botemon

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Jun 28, 2008
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Follow up: I mentioned earlier that you do not need your Perm Residencia card to obtain a Letter of Good Conduct or a letter of guarantee. We arrived at Immigration yesterday at 8:00AM. (I had my Residencia card and my wife did not and we explained that it was confiscated at the airport two days after it had expired in August). "No problem! Just pay a $6000.00 pesos penalty and we will get you a duplicate"! I thought this was quite excessive (about fell over) but I asked if it had been lost or stolen, would the penalty be the same? "No.....It will cost only $2000.00 pesos". BUT you have to go to the police station and report it, then bring the papers back to immigration. (who knows how much that will cost). Well.....needless to say I am out $6000.00! We live on the North Coast......DO NOT want to spend the night in SD.
I paid the $4500.00 peso fee and received my receipt for the medical in about an hour (9:30am). I am now ready to go get the med tests done at this time. We waited and waited.....and waited for my wife's paperwork to move through the system so she could pay for her medical and we could finish up our first trip. Everything got totally screwed up because of this problem with her card. It is not a "normal thing" for them to complete. Around noon we started "sticking them in the side with a sharp object" to get this thing rolling and it was not an easy thing to do. I will just leave it at that. At 2:00pm we finally got this thing done, paid the fee, and RUSHED over to the hospital for the medical. They stop taking people at 2:30pm. We made it just in time and got the medical completed.
So.....if you do not have your perm residence card when you go to renew, get the duplicate FIRST, before you start the renewal process. Just a suggestion from me! Eat and head home.
On a side note..."New rules"!! Surprise surprise! You do NOT need a letter of Guarantee anymore to renew. Go figure! We received an updated paper that reflect this information. I do not know if the new information is on the website, but I'll look later and post, or scan the new rules and post that.
In two weeks, we go back for the new cards. I CAN NOT WAIT to go!! I Love sitting in that room moving around from window number 1, 4, 13, 10, 6........!
 

Mauricio

Gold
Nov 18, 2002
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I had the same situation, leaving the country with a valid residence card and entering it again with an expired one. I asked the immigration officer to give my card back, which he did............

Still haven't done the process though, stupid me, now they raised the cost for the renewal AND the late fee per month.
 

botemon

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Jun 28, 2008
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Yeah......when the wife asked for it back, they said "No.....too bad"! Nice huh?
 
Feb 7, 2007
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You do NOT need to show the residency to immigration officer, only to the person that sells the tourist cards! At least that is the way it works in Punta Cana. Two times I handed them my Residency card only to be handed it immediately back without even looking at it. But the person selling the tourist card analyzed the residency card meticulously.

Moral of the story: If your residency is expired just fork out $10 for a tourist card, OR if you have valid cedula use the cedula instead and if asked, just claim you forgot the residency card at home before the trip.
 

botemon

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Jun 28, 2008
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Yup! I knew this and expressed it to my wife. She forgot. She was "escorting" out granddaughter into the country and had to go in the "tourist visa line" at the airport. When I came back into the country, I only showed my Cedula (not in the tourist visa line), and they just waved me through. The two of us also took a trip to Panama from SD without showing the residencia card. Just the Cedula. Leaving and coning back, it was never a problem. They never asked to see our resedencia.
 

Mauricio

Gold
Nov 18, 2002
5,607
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You do NOT need to show the residency to immigration officer, only to the person that sells the tourist cards! At least that is the way it works in Punta Cana. Two times I handed them my Residency card only to be handed it immediately back without even looking at it. But the person selling the tourist card analyzed the residency card meticulously.

Moral of the story: If your residency is expired just fork out $10 for a tourist card, OR if you have valid cedula use the cedula instead and if asked, just claim you forgot the residency card at home before the trip.
Why would you show your residence card to the guy selling the tourist cards. The idea of the residence card is that you don't buy the tourist card.

If you don't want to risk it, the best thing is buy a tourist card and keep your expired residence card in your pocket. Enter as a tourist.
 

william webster

Platinum
Jan 16, 2009
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Why would you show your residence card to the guy selling the tourist cards. The idea of the residence card is that you don't buy the tourist card.

If you don't want to risk it, the best thing is buy a tourist card and keep your expired residence card in your pocket. Enter as a tourist.

That is the only 'sure fire' way of avoiding a potential problem....^^^^^^^

It was I who reported the expired confiscation... yes, 500 pesos for a lost'stolen police report .
That gets attached to tyhe renewal application and it all goes smoothly

That police report is 500 pesos and the headache of chasing the right man down...

In our case a 25 minutes drive (50 R/T) to nagua.....

better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick but a waste of time, nonetheless

now that the residency and cedula are 'date matched'.... both will be expired
so that ruse will be out the window soon....

keep your papers current !!!