a useful bit on moving household items

monaco09

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Jun 4, 2003
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Some of this has been well covered here, but this comes from a moving company. It may be of some use to know what documents etc. are required.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

DOCUMENTS REQUIRED

Visa?d Passport (for Customer and each member of the family) must be at least one year old, otherwise previous passport is required
Detailed inventory (original in English or Spanish)
Marriage Certificate (if married)
Birth Certificate of children living in same house
Dominican Consular invoice
In addition to the above documents, foreigners must have the following:
Work Permit
Customs Bond
Residence Visa
Work Contract
Dominican Residence Card
Bank guarantee or affidavit
Contracts for house or apartment rental as well as electrical and water service
All documents must be originals
CUSTOMS REGULATIONS

CUSTOMER MUST BE PRESENT FOR CUSTOMS CLEARANCE
A physical examination is required prior to applying to the Department of Exoneration for clearance of goods
Only one shipment allowed
Used household goods duty-free, if used and owned for over two years
Dominican citizens may be allowed one time exemption if they have lived abroad a minimum of one year
DUTIABLE/RESTRICTED ITEMS

All new items (invoices required)
Duplicate electrical appliances (ie.. refrigerators, washers, dryers, air conditioners)
Computer equipment and machinery
PROHIBITED ITEMS

Weapons, ammunition and explosives
Drugs and narcotics (shipment subject to confiscation if included)
Pornographic material
Alcohol and tobacco products must NOT be shipped with household goods, but separately and requires consular documents
MOTOR VEHICLES

CUSTOMER MUST BE PRESENT FOR CUSTOMS CLEARANCE
One auto per person
Autos must be registered/owned by Customer for at least one year
If Dominican citizen, Customer must have lived abroad a minimum of two years
Limited to no larger than 2000 cc and maximum of six cylinders
"Luxury" autos not allowed
Documents required:
Original title must be certified by the Department of Vehicles and legalized by the nearest Dominican Consulate
Original of registration for past three years
Residence Visa
Original Dominican Consular invoice stamped at the nearest Dominican consulate
Original Drivers License
License Plate
Passport
All documents must be originals
PETS

Veterinary Certificate issued within 90 days of departure (no quarantine required for dogs and cats)
Birds have a quarantine period of 10 days
 

gringo in dr

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May 29, 2003
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As with anything here, a connection and some green goes along way. I was having a hard time getting my stuff out of customs. I found out one of my friends (local) can take care of it. I gave him my passport and magically all my stuff appeared at my place. I didn't have to be there. He didn't need any other documents.

There is the correct way (hard way) and the easy way to do everything here.

Even though I lived in Costa Rica for 5 years previous to moving here, I'm still learning how to get things done here.
 

monaco09

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Jun 4, 2003
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Since you have really just done it I am curious. Was there a bunch of hassles/duties etc. I am considering bringing down some things including a computer and big screen TV. Can you shed any insight into the details of what worked and did not work for you?
 

gringo in dr

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May 29, 2003
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The shipping company I dealt with in Costa Rica was great. They packed everything up and sent it out.

All taxes and fees where included on the Costa Rican side. I was supposed to pay the company in DR about $600 to move the stuff from Santo Domingo to Santiago where I live.

When the stuff got here, it went downhill. Standard practice in the DR is to rape the gringos. They told me it was going to cost much more and I still owed the import taxes. One of my friends in Santiago deals with customs all the time. He is a cop here. I told him about it and he went down there to take care of it. Even so, it took him two days. The first day was just trying to find my stuff. No one knew where it was until he had the local police lean on them. Then they "found it".

Customs still had to be paid some bribe money but it was very reasonable. The local company got $100 to recieve the stuff. My friend went back the next day and rented a truck, a large one, I had 25 boxes worth of stuff. He brought everything to my house. I gave him about $200 for himself. I tried to give him more but that was all he would except. All in all, it cost me about $800 on this side. It cost $1,200 on the costa rica side. So for $2,000 I got door to door service for 25 boxes of personal stuff.

Not bad. If I didn't have a contact, I'm sure it would have cost me around $3,000 on the dr side.

Shipping really is a needed evil. How else do you get your personal things here? I sold all of my furniture in CR.
 

andy a

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Feb 23, 2002
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Hey gringo,

Even though its slightly off subject, why don't you tell us why you switched from Costa Rica to DR?

It must be interesting.

Thanks.
 

gringo in dr

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May 29, 2003
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I guess it was just time to try a new spot. I was in CR for 5 years. Plus the rainy season was just about to start again. 8 months of rain every day, all day.

I still love CR and might return there someday. Atenas in CR is rated as the most perfect climate for humans in the world. 75 - 80 year round is pretty hard to beat.

I've only been here about 2 months. I'm still learning my way around.
 

andy a

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Feb 23, 2002
532
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Thanks Gringo

But what's wrong with rain? In the DR it's a welcome relief from the heat.

And nothing beats snuggling up with a chica during a rainstorm.

And of course CR doesn't have the infrastructure problems of the DR.
 

gringo in dr

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May 29, 2003
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Rain gets drepressing after awhile. Think about it. From April until December. Every day you get up, you know it will start to rain around 11 am until 6 or 7 pm. It gets dark there everyday at 6 pm, year round.

As for the infastructure, yes and no. You don't have power problems. Medical care is better than the US. If you are a resident you get free medical and dental care. Free, no payments, no co payments. Just walk into any national hospital and you are taken care of. Of course because it is free you have a long line to wait in. Expect it to kill your day. Now if it is something serious, you don't want to wait in lines or you can afford to spend money, you goto CIMA in Escazu. Cima is a Baylor medical university affiliate. Baylor is in Houston Texas. I would trust them to do anything. They are a private hospital so it is not free, but the cost is a small fraction of what it is in the US.

If you rent a place, make sure it has a phone line. Getting a phone line at your place takes years. Literally. Expect to wait at least 2 years. ICE the phone company is owned by the government. It's the only phone/electric/cell phone company. They have a government mandated monopoly. No one else is allowed in.

If you want a cell phone, first you must be a resident. Pay for the line. That's right, they charge you for the line. Then begin to wait. It will be at least one year before you get your service. If you want to get around this, you have to "buy" a phone from someone that has one. Selling lines is illegal. So you take a chance and pay someone $300 - $500 for their line. At any time they can report it stolen and you are out the money and they sell it again. Of course most people will sell you a power of attorney contract with the line. That's good, it creates work for the lawyers. But since it's illegal to transfer the line, the contract is null and void as far as the law is concerned.

Cars, electronics and appliances, you think they are expensive here? Double the prices in the DR on the electronics and appliances and you have the CR prices. Triple the prices on the cars here (especially used ones) and you have the price in CR. You see alot of hyundais driving around.

Renting or buying a place in CR is also much more expensive than here. Too many sports books and gringos making a lot of money have drove the prices into the atmospere. Also because of all that money going through the banks in CR, the US has leaned on the banks their hard. You can't open a bank account in CR anymore without at least 3 letters of recommendation from other CR banks. Transactions over $3,000 get sent to the IRS. Also the FBI have set up a field office in the international airport there.

Once they run most of the bookies out of there, I'm sure most of it will return to the way it was.

Almost forgot to mention, even in nice neighborhoods, forget about leaving a car outside on the street at night. All cars have to be locked behind gates. Armed security guards are everywhere.

It is much more peaceful here, at least in Santiago. I hope they can clean the place up a bit.
 

gringo in dr

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May 29, 2003
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Don't get me wrong, I still love CR. Like a mother that loves her son while he goes through some hard times. I have faith that they will get it straightened out.

CR does not have any military. So all that money that would be spent on military is supposed to be used for the people. How much of that money is put into pockets of the government? Even so, they the economy is much more stable in CR than the DR. But I think that is because of the huge infusion of bookie money there. So in a way it is fake. Once you start to remove the outside money, they will probably see the bottom fall out. Of course all that means is it will become reasonable to live there again.
 

andy a

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Feb 23, 2002
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Gringo

It's been more than 10 years since I was in CR, but at the time, consumer items like food and taxicabs in particular were much cheaper than the DR. Furthermore, taxi drivers didn't try to overcharge the way they so often do in the DR. They might have even had meters. Is that still the case?
 

gringo in dr

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May 29, 2003
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I think in both CR and the DR, if you stick to local food items they are very cheap. If you start buying imported stuff then it's costly.

The gas in CR is more expensive than here. You are looking at $2.50 - $2.80 per gallon. Both the price of gas and the price of the taxis is controlled by the government. The taxis do use meters. But if you are a gringo, some of them will try to not use it and over charge. If you are taking a taxi to or from a hotel, you will not find any taxi that will use the meter. You will just have to pay more. Or if you know the area you can walk away from the hotel and grab one in the street, or get dropped off a block away and walk the rest of the way.

If you are taking a taxi for a long distance, more than 30 - 45 minutes, normally they don't want to use the meter either.

There are a ton of pirate taxis. One that do not have a license to be a taxi and work on their own. They sometimes have a meter and sometimes don't. Normally the pirates will charge you too much.

Some taxi drivers are mad that the price of gas has gone up and they have not been allowed to raise their fares. Some have rigged their meters to charge more.

All the taxi drivers hate the pirate taxis because they charge more and don't have to split the money with anyone.

If you are going to be there for any length of time, you should just buy a car. They are very expensive but if you buy a common car, like a mitsubishi, you will get the money back when you sell it.

Also they now have a technical revision for cars. It is run by some company from spain. They have begun to take the junks off the road. They do spot checks on the any vehicle that is putting out smoke. So slowly they are getting taken off the road. The air quality is getting better.