- Thread starter sosua1
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Living in Dr
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There are many people far more qualified than I am to give advice, but since no one has stepped forward yet, I'll start with one of the first steps.
Get a good attorney to handle getting your residency visa and cedula, let them handle it. It takes about a year to get your temprary, and another year to get a permenent. It will cost between 1000 and 1500 US dollars for a good attorney for the temp, and another 1000 - 1500 US for the perm.
You can do it yourself, with some knowledge of the bureaucracy and with fluency in Spanish, but in my opinion it is worth the money for an attorney.
Get a good attorney to handle getting your residency visa and cedula, let them handle it. It takes about a year to get your temprary, and another year to get a permenent. It will cost between 1000 and 1500 US dollars for a good attorney for the temp, and another 1000 - 1500 US for the perm.
You can do it yourself, with some knowledge of the bureaucracy and with fluency in Spanish, but in my opinion it is worth the money for an attorney.
Hey Sosua1, looks like you have been around for a while. Best way to start is doing some searches. This has all been covered before. Search the boards and archives and start reading.
After that you will likely have some specific questions for us.
When are you planning the move?
After that you will likely have some specific questions for us.
When are you planning the move?
Madness
Oh hell - how does one begin to answer the question about how to move here!
First, $1000 - $1500 is robbery as the real costs are relatively low. What you are paying for a the bribes and for someone else to do the work. When I say, someone else does the work, obviously that's not true. You do the work because you have to fill all the forms in. But someone else will either show you where to submit them or take them for you. This is ore complex than it appears. You have to go to one place to get a form. You'll probably have to go back so that you are there when they have a form! Then you go away and fill it in because each form requires you to have something you didn't know about - so you have to go get it. Then you return, probably to adifferent location, to get someone stamp the form to say it's authentic. then you go back to were you started to submit the form. At some time you'll have to return to do a medical - the blood test is done in one location and they they expect you to cross town to where they inspect the rest of you (briefly). At some stage you will be exhausted and much poorer (petrol) bt your for will be submitted. They will tell you to phone to see it's status. When you phone you'll be told it hasn't been looked at yet. You'll keep phoning until you realise that nobody's going to look at your form until you turn up and ask questions. So you'll go back to where you submitted the form to be told that they've "lost" it. You'll be told to come back in two weeks time which you'll do and they may have "found it". Then they'll dream up something like "we can't read the date stamp on your passport so you'll have to go to the airport to ask them to confirm your date of entry". Escalating this in a very loud voice may save some time and avoid this journey. That's when you learn someoe needs to sign the form but he's on holiday. Two weeks later you'll return and the person who needs to sign will not be on holiday any more but he will instead not be in the office. Of course, nobody will have a clue where he is and nobody will have his mobile number (in Dominicana? Yeah! And pigs fly.) So you'll come back two weeks later and with luck, you'll find him in. Except he'll be ill - he'll have this strange itch in his hand. Of course you have literally ALL the skills needed to treat this itch or else you can choose to wait until he feels the itch has gone away. Now, having finally got the signature, you'll believe all is well and the process is complete. but no, someone has to sign that the signature is valid. More visits, more itches. Then of course the final signature has to be done (perhaps they'll do it in the two weeks that they ask you to wait for). When you return, the form will be lost. Shouting works quite well to isolate you completely. It's better to get to know the bosses and beg their help - when they're in. Finally, you'll have to queue up to show a bit of paper that you queued up to get, so that you can pay another tax (by now you'l have paid several others, each time after queuing 3 times). Having paid, you go back to where you queued for the paper that allowed you to queue to pay and now you show that you paid. This will then allow the teller to pass your paper to their left while you wait until you hear your name called out, badly mispronounced over a tannoy that doesn't work so you probably won't hear it unless you know to stand near the window were the man works. When you hear your name, RUN to the window to avoid being trampled by the others who are called at the same time. Show your identification and,congratulation, you now have your first visa! Now all you need to do is the same again, to get a permanent visa!
The Dominican Republic believes in documenting processes. However they never quite document most of them. Nor do they document them correctly. So nothing's written down will help you. Anything you are told is likely to be incorrect unless it is by the next person you need to submit to, who of course is always in a different office to the one you're in when you need to ask "what next". Every office is always on the other side of Santo Domingo to where you are.
Nothing is in any language other than Spanish and their Spanish is atrocious.
Ah yes, I forgot. Public buildings that everyone has to visit always have no or far too little parking space. Expect to walk a lot.
If any of your foreign papers (from your own country) are permanently lost, the Dominicana attitude is that it's your problem to replace them at your cost (don't expect an apology). Of course all such papers have to be submitted by you, to the Dominicana Embassy nearest to your home town, requiring you to return home.
No government document is ever valid unless at least one office other than where the document was issued has inspected it and stamped it to say it was legitimate (even though they don't actually know if it is or not).
And that's just to get permission to live here.
So you could get a lawyer - or you could get a local Dominicano to help you as there's really nothing to it! (I in fact did do it all just with a local Dominicano. Not that you'd be able to guess that.)
When you do move here, you will of course ship your personal effects here. That will require a shipping agent here so that your goods can be collected and the paperwork done, all in Customs (Aduanas) where you aren't allowed to go. Your prized possessions will be carefully checked over by the Aduanas, to ensure that you do not import drugs (thereby ensuring you are one of the few people here who doesn't have any). At the same time, they will accidentally remove anything they like and as much as they like. It's a good idea to photo everything as it is packed but this will just lengthen the time that you can argue with Aduanas before you realise that he word embarassment here (verguensa) has no real meaning - nobody who would be embarassed would do anything to be embarassed (that takes care of 0.5% of Dominicanos) and the rest spit out the word frequently so as to fool you into thinking they might be embarassed (but they aren't - by anything). At which point you'll realise that your things have been taken by the Aduanas and there's nothing you can do about it.
As a final act, the aduanas will insist on visiting your home to check that your belongings safely got there and were not tampered with. They will arrive months later and, strangely, they too will have itchy palm disease. It's cured quickly but has a strange side effect of making them forget that they wanted to inspect your things.
Sorry my answer was so brief - didn't want to complicate things with the full truth.
{Solisdad2000}
Oh hell - how does one begin to answer the question about how to move here!
First, $1000 - $1500 is robbery as the real costs are relatively low. What you are paying for a the bribes and for someone else to do the work. When I say, someone else does the work, obviously that's not true. You do the work because you have to fill all the forms in. But someone else will either show you where to submit them or take them for you. This is ore complex than it appears. You have to go to one place to get a form. You'll probably have to go back so that you are there when they have a form! Then you go away and fill it in because each form requires you to have something you didn't know about - so you have to go get it. Then you return, probably to adifferent location, to get someone stamp the form to say it's authentic. then you go back to were you started to submit the form. At some time you'll have to return to do a medical - the blood test is done in one location and they they expect you to cross town to where they inspect the rest of you (briefly). At some stage you will be exhausted and much poorer (petrol) bt your for will be submitted. They will tell you to phone to see it's status. When you phone you'll be told it hasn't been looked at yet. You'll keep phoning until you realise that nobody's going to look at your form until you turn up and ask questions. So you'll go back to where you submitted the form to be told that they've "lost" it. You'll be told to come back in two weeks time which you'll do and they may have "found it". Then they'll dream up something like "we can't read the date stamp on your passport so you'll have to go to the airport to ask them to confirm your date of entry". Escalating this in a very loud voice may save some time and avoid this journey. That's when you learn someoe needs to sign the form but he's on holiday. Two weeks later you'll return and the person who needs to sign will not be on holiday any more but he will instead not be in the office. Of course, nobody will have a clue where he is and nobody will have his mobile number (in Dominicana? Yeah! And pigs fly.) So you'll come back two weeks later and with luck, you'll find him in. Except he'll be ill - he'll have this strange itch in his hand. Of course you have literally ALL the skills needed to treat this itch or else you can choose to wait until he feels the itch has gone away. Now, having finally got the signature, you'll believe all is well and the process is complete. but no, someone has to sign that the signature is valid. More visits, more itches. Then of course the final signature has to be done (perhaps they'll do it in the two weeks that they ask you to wait for). When you return, the form will be lost. Shouting works quite well to isolate you completely. It's better to get to know the bosses and beg their help - when they're in. Finally, you'll have to queue up to show a bit of paper that you queued up to get, so that you can pay another tax (by now you'l have paid several others, each time after queuing 3 times). Having paid, you go back to where you queued for the paper that allowed you to queue to pay and now you show that you paid. This will then allow the teller to pass your paper to their left while you wait until you hear your name called out, badly mispronounced over a tannoy that doesn't work so you probably won't hear it unless you know to stand near the window were the man works. When you hear your name, RUN to the window to avoid being trampled by the others who are called at the same time. Show your identification and,congratulation, you now have your first visa! Now all you need to do is the same again, to get a permanent visa!
The Dominican Republic believes in documenting processes. However they never quite document most of them. Nor do they document them correctly. So nothing's written down will help you. Anything you are told is likely to be incorrect unless it is by the next person you need to submit to, who of course is always in a different office to the one you're in when you need to ask "what next". Every office is always on the other side of Santo Domingo to where you are.
Nothing is in any language other than Spanish and their Spanish is atrocious.
Ah yes, I forgot. Public buildings that everyone has to visit always have no or far too little parking space. Expect to walk a lot.
If any of your foreign papers (from your own country) are permanently lost, the Dominicana attitude is that it's your problem to replace them at your cost (don't expect an apology). Of course all such papers have to be submitted by you, to the Dominicana Embassy nearest to your home town, requiring you to return home.
No government document is ever valid unless at least one office other than where the document was issued has inspected it and stamped it to say it was legitimate (even though they don't actually know if it is or not).
And that's just to get permission to live here.
So you could get a lawyer - or you could get a local Dominicano to help you as there's really nothing to it! (I in fact did do it all just with a local Dominicano. Not that you'd be able to guess that.)
When you do move here, you will of course ship your personal effects here. That will require a shipping agent here so that your goods can be collected and the paperwork done, all in Customs (Aduanas) where you aren't allowed to go. Your prized possessions will be carefully checked over by the Aduanas, to ensure that you do not import drugs (thereby ensuring you are one of the few people here who doesn't have any). At the same time, they will accidentally remove anything they like and as much as they like. It's a good idea to photo everything as it is packed but this will just lengthen the time that you can argue with Aduanas before you realise that he word embarassment here (verguensa) has no real meaning - nobody who would be embarassed would do anything to be embarassed (that takes care of 0.5% of Dominicanos) and the rest spit out the word frequently so as to fool you into thinking they might be embarassed (but they aren't - by anything). At which point you'll realise that your things have been taken by the Aduanas and there's nothing you can do about it.
As a final act, the aduanas will insist on visiting your home to check that your belongings safely got there and were not tampered with. They will arrive months later and, strangely, they too will have itchy palm disease. It's cured quickly but has a strange side effect of making them forget that they wanted to inspect your things.
Sorry my answer was so brief - didn't want to complicate things with the full truth.
{Solisdad2000}
If you have the $800 and won't miss it, contact Bob K (above) and take his offer of help. My story above reflects 15 months to get a residential visa (and I'm married to a Constansera so it should have been a breeze). You're paying for convenience, not service - the lawyer is paid to grease the wheels better than you can.
Good luck.
{Solisdad2000}
Good luck.
{Solisdad2000}
Bob K,
I think I know who you are referring to, and she is great.
In fact, she is the one I used, and I would recommend her to anyone.
However, I think she has raised her fee recently. I believe she charges $900-$1000 now, but I could be wrong. In any event, she is worth it.
I think I know who you are referring to, and she is great.
In fact, she is the one I used, and I would recommend her to anyone.
However, I think she has raised her fee recently. I believe she charges $900-$1000 now, but I could be wrong. In any event, she is worth it.
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