How to Pay Your Rent in Paradise

How does one come up with the funds to pay rent (first, last and security) south of the border? It's not as easy as you might think if you haven't been around the Mexican block per se.

When we signed our 1 year lease on August 26th our first rent payment was due in cash in 2 days. The maximum we could withdraw from an ATM was $500 per day. There was no way we could withdraw the requisite funds in time. The second method was to become a client of a local check cashing business, write a US check to ourselves and wait up to 11 days for the check to be deposited and funds given to us. 11 days was too long for us to wait. The third method was to bring the money with us into Mexico. You're allowed up to $10,000 in cash, I believe. Since we didn't think that far ahead that option was out as well. I'm sure there are a thousand other ways, but those are the primary ones we considered with our limited experience down here.

We explained our situation to our landlord, who understood and agreed to let us transfer the money via wire to his Mexican account. Well, how does one do a wire transfer in Mexico without a Mexican bank account? Both my US bank and Allan's US bank don't have offices in Mexico. Furthermore, they require one to be physically present to make the transfer. (Our banks don't allow online wire transfers.) That would mean one of us would have to fly back to the states. Although we seriously considered that option there had to be another way.

Luckily through advice from friends in Playa we did manage to find a Mexican bank that would allow us to open an account. But how do we transfer funds held in our US bank accounts into the new Mexican one? It so happens this Mexican bank has a relationship with our American bank - so we could transfer the money into the account - or could we? It was time to call the US bank to find out how.

After going through $20 in international calling cards (we only had an 800 number for the bank, and you can't easily dial 800 #s from Mexico without a calling card - or VOIP system like Vonage), we finally were able to talk to someone at the bank only to find out that to set up the transfer between the US account and Mexican account I would have to be physically present at a US bank branch. It was looking like either I or Allan would have to fly home to make the wire transfer. Luckily our US friends who live in Mexico pointed us to a US bank that allows one to open an account online and make online international wire transfers!! It seemed so easy....but IT WASN'T.

After 2 weeks - YES 2 WEEKS and $30 USD more in calling cards we finally were able to send the wire ALMOST 3 WEEKS LATE. OMG. When an account is opened with this bank, apparently you have to wait for the account paperwork and cards to arrive at your home address before anyone at the bank will talk to you. Second, one needs all that paperwork to apply for the wire transfer service. So we spent 1 week waiting for the paperwork to arrive at my folk's home in the US (which we listed as our home address since the Mexican postal system is poor at best). Once the paperwork arrived we applied for the wire transfer service, which took another few days to complete. Then to make a wire transfer online one has to "add a wire recipient" which really entails filling in a TON of information, which I didn't have - and had to wait and get from my landlord. Then once the recipient had been added we had to wait for the bank to approve the recipient. This entailed 1) having the bank disable my online account access and 2) calling the bank spending about $20 USD in cards to verify that yes I was who I said I was (about 10 questions pulled from my credit report) and no I didn't win the Nigerian lottery and yes I did know the person I was wiring money to.

After all the money spent and time wasted waiting and stressed out that I was late on my first month's rent, we finally were able to wire the money. It's just unbelieveable that something I take for granted in the US can be so much more difficult south of the border without proper planning, without the knowledge of how things work down here and without knowing all the work arounds. One of these days I am going to write a book on how to get things done in Mexico. It's going to be called "The Workarounds". It will explain that, yes, almost anything is possible in Mexico, if you know how and are willing to be patient - like a saint.

Playa del Carmen Condo and Villa Vacation Rentals

Our bedroom less curtains which are due on Saturday. Yes, that is a sheet, and no I wasn't raised in a slum.

Our bedroom. Allan's working on a cheap fold up table and chair purchased at Walmart. This is life until our furniture arrives one day.

Closets in the master bedroom.

Sinks and jacuzzi tub in the master bath.

Dual sinks in the master bath.

Our shower less 1 wall. The bathroom showered with us for a week until the door arrived.

Guest bedroom less curtains again.

Guest bath. The shower is still missing a door.

The laundry room.

Our kitchen. Notice how small the oven is. Apparently not many people cook down here. It's hot and local eats can be found for so cheap.

Our kitchen and living area less furniture.

Our living/dining area.

The pool is about 20 steps from our door. We've been in almost everyday. The water's at least 90F.

Local artisan pottery adorns the wall outside our slider - soon to be Allan's garden.

Local pottery to be hung outside.

Playa del Carmen Condo and Villa Vacation Rentals