Live Q and A Tuesday 9/13 11.30 AM EDT

[SUZAN HASKINS]

Hello everyone, this is Suzan, one of your Ecuador Insiders. TOMORROW — on Tuesday, September 13 at 11:30 EDT — I’ll be here for an hour, live and in person, to answer any questions you have about moving to or traveling in Ecuador. Post your questions here and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Don’t worry if I don’t get around to your question during the hour. If we don’t have time for your question, you can start a new thread and one of your Ecuador Insiders will help you with an answer.

If you have a question that is extremely personal in nature and/or you don’t feel comfortable asking it here on the forum, email it to EcuadorInsiderQandA@InternationalLiving.com and our Insider team will do their best to answer it for you.

I’ll chat with you tomorrow, Suzan

[Kep Vadnais]

1. My husband and I are interested in moving to Quito or Cumbaya. This time of year isn’t considered the rainy season, however, it’s been raining daily since I started keeping tabs on the weather. Is this normal? I thought Cuenca was known for “eternal springtime” (rain).

2. What is a realistic time frame from when we decide to move forward with moving to Ecuador and actually living in Ecuador?

3. We plan to visit in February for “boots on the ground” research and were wondering if it’s possible to open a bank account at that time as we’ll have to have funds available once we arrive as expats. My impression is that this will have to wait.

4. We’ve been advised to obtain an immigration attorney. Do you have a contact by chance?

[SHAUN LJUNGGREN]

Hi Suzan. Thanks for doing this. The timing is great for us as we are moving down at end of October. My question is regarding bringing our first wave of stuff down as checked luggage.

We are each hoping to bring three bags/bins each with clothes, house supplies, electronics, kitchenware and musical instruments/recording gear. Is that going to be a problem with Ecuador customs since we can’t have official residency until we finish paperwork in Ecuador?

[Deborah Durham]

I am not getting an audio feed. Is the Q & A only printed?

[Alan Anderson]

We’ve owned a condo in Ecuador for a few years and have recently thought of selling. I recall vaguely that if we remove the money from Ecuador there is a tax. Is that still in effect? If so how much? Is it standard for the attorney to take care of that?

[JOHN BUCHANAN]

is there supposed to be an audio feed here?

[SUZAN HASKINS]

Hi Kep, when you say “keeping tabs”, do you mean from afar or are you in Ecuador? If you are looking at satellite data, it appears to be ALWAYS raining in Ecuador…and I suppose it is somewhere in the country! But believe me, it does not rain every day in Cuenca. I don’t live there, of course…and I am partial to the weather here in northern Ecuador. And the rainy season is my favorite time of year!

[Kep Vadnais]

Tabs on my phone app 🙂

[SUZAN HASKINS]

Now, let me see if I can answer your other questions: Not knowing your current situation (whether you have a house you need to sell, etc) I can’t give you a moving timeframe…but I’d guess 6 months offhand. You should wait to open a bank account until after you know where you will live. and You should find a list of attorneys in your Ecaudor Insider website. If not, email it to EcuadorInsiderQandA@InternationalLiving.com and our Insider team will find that info for you.

[SHAUN LJUNGGREN]

Hi Suzan-
We are headed to Cuenca at the end of October. We will be applying for residency there. We got our police and FBI checks sent in mid August because I was not sure how long they would take. They processed quickly and are dated mid August. Do you think we need to redo them so they are dated later?

Also- we have a 9 and 11 year old. Do they require background checks?

Thanks,
Ann

[SUZAN HASKINS]

Shaun, you will have no trouble bringing your items when you come, although there are some things (electronics especially) you may be asked to be duty on — but that’s only if you get the red light and are selected for inspection. here’s a note from my fellow Ecuador Insider, Jim Santos: I have brought some kind of musical instrument or piece of recording equipment with me on every trip into Ecuador without any problems. We shipped a container when we moved, and I also included no less than 18 musical instruments, two amps, a mixing board, miss, and a 24-channel digital recorder as “personal collection” with no problems or tariffs (during our “6-month duty free” period)

[Kep Vadnais]

Yes, we will have a condo to sell. We thought it would take a year to get everything processed to six months is even better!

So we can open a bank account before residency?

[SUZAN HASKINS]

Deborah, this is old school — typing only. 🙂

[SUZAN HASKINS]

Alan, there is a 5% exit fee on money leaving Ecuador. A work-around is to sell it to someone with a bank account in the States… just do the transfer Stateside.

[JOHN BUCHANAN]

This ‘live forum’ is pretty lame guys… out!

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