Up to now, I have done four home closings in my life. Today was number five. Previous closings have always involved me and a lawyer quietly signing a few documents, answering a few questions, giving or receiving keys and that's about it. They do things differently in Mexico.
Here, a Notario (notary public) is higher than a lawyer and just one step below a Judge, and is the only person who can do a closing. There were 10 people in all, eight of them seated at a round table, including the sellers, the buyers and both parties' agents and brokers. The Notario reads the deed aloud, which is written in Spanish and displayed on a large TV monitor, while translating into English on the fly. Any questions are asked, and pretty soon everyone is talking at once. There are side conversations, questions and answers are interrupted by the presentation of documents for signing, which are explained, then the pandemonium continues until the next documents are presented. Cheques are being written and exchanged, cash in various currencies is passed, receipts are given, electricity and copies of telephone bills are exchanged, and finally, with ears ringing, it is over.
It was hilarious.
Paperwork in Mexico is complicated. It's not a problem, as long as you understand what needs to be done. And it's there to protect you, a fact which was further demonstrated when it took a full two hours to open a Mexican bank account so we can pay bills in pesos. In Canada, that process takes about 20 minutes. Here the file folder of copied documents is a quarter-inch thick.
To log into your online account, they give you a dongle that generates a dynamic password that is valid for 20 seconds. You need to enter this in addition to your UserID and password.
I kind of like the security.
No comments:
Post a Comment