necesitamos ayuda

Submitted by el malabarista on 20 October, 2006 - 07:00.

hello everybody boy do i need help. we have a container bobbing around on the Atlantic as we 'speak' and no import papers. This extraordinary state of affairs has occured due to a major %&*! mistake by our abogado. he told us that there would be no problem importing our land rover and motorcycle even though they are over ten years old as he could arrange for them to be imported under the name of a charity/church organisation that he knew and all we had to do was pay 'a little extra' for the church. Well we received an email last night telling us that no way could we bring the vehicles in even though he had assured us only the day before that all was in hand and he had the customs paperwork all sorted out.Our shipper and the shipper in Nicaragua all believed this fool and now we are getting warning emails from both shippers that the box and ALL its contents will be shipped back to the UK at our expense! About $12000 which we don't have. This could ruin our plans of living and working in Nica and if anyone knows of a way to get our plans back on track we would be more than grateful. Ideally we need a charity or church organisation who is willing to import the vehicles on our behalf in return for a donation and use of the vehicles for an agreed period of time per month. But we are willing to try anything at this point....we have only 16 days.....and counting. we will be arriving there in time to meet the container and we will be in Las Penitas by the 27th HEEEEEEELP

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Any good news?

Was just wondering how this turned out for you!

re vehicles

we are in esteli right now awaiting the results of Paul Tiffers intervention with crossed fingers......our abogado malo is still working for us but under close scrutiny of another.....as he has already been paid......we will keep you posted.....many thanks for your interest

You didn't call Sonia

did you?

Please keep us posted

I do not think it is possible to bring a car or vehicle older than 6 years. Reason for this is that all junkers from USA would be shipped to Nica.

Charge your lawyer with mal practice

Get another one and do it.

Perhaps the offending items can be donated to charity

Lyin' Farmer John Wayne

El abogado pando

Thanks all for your suggestions we are speaking to another lawyer at the moment and hopefully our next posting will contain better news.

A bit of thinking

First, something doesn't sound right. It doesn't make sense that the whole container would be shipped back if there was a problem with two items. I would check that out directly with customs or a customs broker that isn't a crook. I don't know any but I believe some other people have posted some info here.

If you are looking for someone to "donate" the vehicle to, look at non-profit foundations as well. They are more likely to know "how it works" than a church.

Finally, if everything looks very bad, you might consider the vehicles to "your business partner/brother/..." in Costa Rica. You should be able to get paperwork that says they are just passing thru Nicaragua on their way to their final destination. That doesn't offer a long-term solution but it should allow you to separate them from the other stuff and then give you a bit of time to work on Plan B.

As a side note, assuming the car is right-hand drive, the vehicle code (Ley 431) says it cannot be driven here. However, note that one of the newer fire trucks donated from Japan to Estelí is right-hand drive.

Shoulda listened to Alan :-)

Maybe we can get the Rusting Zinc Fund configured to accept them legally.