Exit Fees still being paid in cash

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drstock

drstock

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MariaRubia said:
There are a lot of perks to residency. You can't work legally, nor run a business (including a vacation rental business such as AirBnB) without residency. You don't have access to local health insurance. Your driving license may be invalid after 3 months. If you have residency for investment / pension / renter then you get a 50% reduction on IPI and on property-related taxes. It's way harder to open a local bank account without residency. And so the list goes on and on and on. If you are serious about living here, integrating into society and not just having an extended vacation, then residency is pretty much essential. In my opinion.
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When I moved here I started a rental business without Residency. There are still many people that I know who run rentals businesses here - some live outside the country, let alone have Residency. Similarly, on coming here I immediately obtained local health insurance and I know people who to this day have it without Residency.

But I now have Residency, in case you were wondering, but not because of those issues.
 
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Kricke87

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MariaRubia said:
There are a lot of perks to residency. You can't work legally, nor run a business (including a vacation rental business such as AirBnB) without residency. You don't have access to local health insurance. Your driving license may be invalid after 3 months. If you have residency for investment / pension / renter then you get a 50% reduction on IPI and on property-related taxes. It's way harder to open a local bank account without residency. And so the list goes on and on and on. If you are serious about living here, integrating into society and not just having an extended vacation, then residency is pretty much essential. In my opinion.
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Maria, come on.. you know as well as I do that it's not "can't" but rather shouldn't.. I know of quite a few foreigners who lived here for YEARS and they are working here illegally, have businesses here, rentals as well. It's also possible to get local health insurance just with a passport. It's not particularly hard to open a bank account without residency either..
Which is also the problem as a foreign national you should not be able to do any of these things unless you're legal here, until that changes there are honestly no real reason to become legal except for your own piece of mind.
windeguy said:
I became a naturalized citizen so I would not longer have to deal with the dull norms at Migracion.
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Yes me too..
windeguy said:
Remarkable that you have not had to show your license at a traffic stop ever in 7 years of driving on an illegal one.
If I or my wife are stopped, they always ask for the license and insurance.

They don't need to increase the fines. They just need to enforce the actual laws that Migracion has on the books, which have no fines at all.
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Who said I'm driving on an illegal one? I've had a DR drivers license for 7 years now, and since I got it have never needed to show it, because I never get stopped. During the 12 years I've been here, I've only been stopped twice. First time only had been here for less than 2 months and I was in a hurry to return a rental cal, and didn't have my seat belt. 2nd time a few years later, still no DR license but I was a resident at that time, I was stopped because one headlight had burned out and I hadn't fixed it. But apart from that, one perk of being white is that you're never stopped, unless you break any obvious law.
The police are too busy hunting hatians and DIGESETT to busy stopping all crazy moto drivers to care to stop a white guy to check if he has a DR license, and still if you're stopped you can just play like you don't understand and they'll let you go...😂
But yeah I agree no need to increase the fines, instead enforce the law as it is.. if you overstay, 5 years you're not allowed to enter, don't allow foreign nationals to open bank accounts or own property without being legal etc... But as I'm also aware, it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, so I try not to beat a dead horse more than necessary..😂
 
Jan

Jan

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drstock said:
It was a hell of a lot easier 23 years ago than it is now. I know several people who have tried but given up because they found it practically impossible.
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I remember they asked for a police report. I went to my local police station in Middlesex PA and asked them to give me a letter that said I was a good person. He typed and signed it and that's what I used. No aposteled stuff for me..lol
 
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MariaRubia

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Kricke87 said:
Maria, come on.. you know as well as I do that it's not "can't" but rather shouldn't.. I know of quite a few foreigners who lived here for YEARS and they are working here illegally, have businesses here, rentals as well. It's also possible to get local health insurance just with a passport. It's not particularly hard to open a bank account without residency either..
Which is also the problem as a foreign national you should not be able to do any of these things unless you're legal here, until that changes there are honestly no real reason to become legal except for your own piece of mind.

Yes me too..

Who said I'm driving on an illegal one? I've had a DR drivers license for 7 years now, and since I got it have never needed to show it, because I never get stopped. During the 12 years I've been here, I've only been stopped twice. First time only had been here for less than 2 months and I was in a hurry to return a rental cal, and didn't have my seat belt. 2nd time a few years later, still no DR license but I was a resident at that time, I was stopped because one headlight had burned out and I hadn't fixed it. But apart from that, one perk of being white is that you're never stopped, unless you break any obvious law.
The police are too busy hunting hatians and DIGESETT to busy stopping all crazy moto drivers to care to stop a white guy to check if he has a DR license, and still if you're stopped you can just play like you don't understand and they'll let you go...😂
But yeah I agree no need to increase the fines, instead enforce the law as it is.. if you overstay, 5 years you're not allowed to enter, don't allow foreign nationals to open bank accounts or own property without being legal etc... But as I'm also aware, it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, so I try not to beat a dead horse more than necessary..😂
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Depends on the size of the business and where you are. I know a foreign guy without residency who is running a hotel in Santo Domingo and it's becoming more and more of a nightmare for him without residency.
 
CristoRey

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MariaRubia said:
Depends on the size of the business and where you are. I know a foreign guy without residency who is running a hotel in Santo Domingo and it's becoming more and more of a nightmare for him without residency.
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Times are always changing.
 
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windeguy

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drstock said:
It was a hell of a lot easier 23 years ago than it is now. I know several people who have tried but given up because they found it practically impossible.
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Not everyone qualifies for legal residency. You actually have to show you have some type of funding mechanism to get residency, and not all people have that.
I just read on FB that some dull norm paid a lawyer $10,000 CDN for legal residency work.

People from tourist card countries can come and continue to stay illegally for as long as they want and pay a "fee for their illegal overstays" if they want to leave the DR. Then they can come back any time they want to and stay again as long as they want to. Rinse and Repeat.

As long as nobody cares, that will continue forever and ever.
 
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cavok

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Give it time. Sooner or later you will only be able to pay with credit card. How many tourists stay here long enough to have to pay an overstay fee and don't have a credit card? I'd say about as close to zero as you can get.
 
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