Overcoming Legal Obstacles to Mexican Residency: An Expat’s Perspective [Podcast]

Podcast #317 – Overcoming Legal Hurdles for Mexican Residency

Description:

In this episode, I will discuss the legal processes and issues my wife and I experienced when we became an ex-pat in Mexico. This includes applying for a residency visa, the various identification numbers you need to acquire, obtaining an apostille for your marriage certificate, making new wills, obtaining a Mexican driver’s license, and some other information. This will not be legal advice as I am not a lawyer, but it will give you some things to think about. This will be specific to Mexico, but you will encounter the same issues no matter where you travel.

For those new to this podcast, my wife and I moved to Ajijic Mexico in 2018. My wife has retired and I have moved my business south of the border. That’s when I started blogging and podcasting regularly about our experiences. To my great surprise, these episodes were very popular.

We have crossed a number of legal thresholds as we are both now permanent residents and both have Mexican driver’s licenses. We bought a house in Ajijic in October 2021 and bought a new car in Mexico in January 2023. Buying a new car was painful as the availability of new cars at dealerships is very limited. The process was easy once the cars were delivered, but the wait was painful.

We chose to live in a very walkable place in Mexico and therefore the 3 months we were without a car were fine. We realized we didn’t need the car very often, but there were times when it was handy to have. Instead we hired a professional driver to take us to the places. For example, my wife needed her hearing aids serviced and we hired a driver to take her to Guadalajara twice, once to speak to the audiologist and drop off the hearing aids and another time to pick them up.

This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Visit the career pivot community, and be sure to pick up my latest book, Reshape Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third edition.

Now for the podcast…