As a normal part of our  business we open financial accounts with various institutions around the world.  Mostl of them require a notarized account opening document or signature card.  In most places, even including the two islands on which I lived in the Caribbean, this is a piece of cake–here it is an indigestible lump of something I prefer not to describe in a family blog.

One cannot simply get one’s signature notarized here.  The Government won’t allow.  Instead, one must jump through a series of ever more expensive and difficult hoops in order to accomplish this erstwhile simple task.

We have been trying to open an account at a Bank in Poland to more easily load a new Visa card product we are getting ready to offer.  ALL we need to complete it is to have two signatures notarized.  But it CAN’T be done here.  Escibranos, the local name for civil law notaries (although the law isn’t very civil at all) can’t just notarize a signature, they have to notarize the whole document.

And God-forbid that the document is in any language other than Spanish (like Polish and English maybe), the document has to be translated into Spanish.  This means that I have the privilege of paying a public translator to translate an English-Polish bank account opening form into Spanish.  I don’t yet know if they translate BOTH the English and the Polish–(probably they do so they can charge twice for the same translation).

Then the document can be notarized.

End of story; right?  Wrong!  Because Uruguay is one of a handfull of countries that to not subscribe the the International Convention on the Legalisation of Documents, Uruguay does not issue Apostilles, which are basically an internationally recognized super-notarization.  Some other countries that do not have the Apostille include some important business centers as North Korea, Cuba, and Libya.

This means that the document has to be legalized before it can be sent to Poland.

So, after it is translated, and notarized, it must be sent to a court for review.

But we’re still not finished!  Then it goes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to finally be legalized.

But we’re not done yet.  Now, it has to be taken to the Polish Embassy in Buenos Aires (because the Polish Embassy here is now closed), after which it can finally be sent to the Polish Bank.

Easy:  US$500 and a month later, we have the document….

EXCEPT that the Court didn’t like two or three words in the notarization, so we had to start the process all over again.

NB:  For those of you who might think that I missed the obvious solution of going to the US Embassy to get the signatures notarized, I didn’t.  The Yankee Embassy will ONLY notarize documents intended for the US.  And espite the grandiose ambitions of King Georeg II, Poland is not yet considered a part of the US (except in some parts of Chicago–or maybe it is the other way around? Chicago is considered a part of Poland…).

For those who want to know more about the Apostille, see:  http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.status&cid=41#nonmem

I made so much money from these websites that I am retiring.

After a year-and-a-half of hard labor, they have become so profitable that International Living is buying the entire group from me.  They simply made me an offer I cannot refuse and I took it and I am history.

The trick was to get everyone to pay me for everything we did.  A peso from every taxi driver, a ten spot from every hotel or restaurant listing, a kickback from every realtor or consultant, and of course, huge revenue from Google Ads.  (Not to mention selling mailing lists made from people attending the Thursday night Open House—we had to pay for that food and booze somehow!)  Costa Rica even hired me when I agreed not to trash them as much as I wanted to.  Pure capitalism, and you’ve gotta love it.That was the story I was told by two people yesterday.

At first, I thought they were talking about someone else—then, I realized they were talking about me.

The truth is slightly different.  These websites were started almost by accident—and then they simply grew.  As people asked for more, we tried to give it to them.  Several times we did indeed consider ways to try to make these websites into a business—at least so that they might break even.

But we decided against that.  We decided that the only way to keep what we are doing pure and clean is to continue our practice of foregoing any income from these websites.  To this end, we have even decide to pull the Google Ads and forego the US$57 we have averaged each month in income from them. (I gave the order yesterday.)

Instead, and as you may have noticed, these websites are now being publicly sponsored by our Private Banking company—our real business—which has privately sponsored them all along, and is footing the US$2000 per month we spend promoting Uruguay though them.

Some companies support the Olympics, we choose to support Uruguay—it is as simple as that.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has made any money from these websites or any UruguayLiving sponsored activity or website, except for the Google Ads money and the income from the sale of my book—all of which has been used to support this blog on Living in Uruguay, our Uruguay Information website, our Uruguay News service, and our Uruguay Forum.  This is not, and will not be a commercial operation.  This is a labor of love for my new home, totally supported by the Capital Conservator Group.

If there is anything about our policy that remains unclear, or about which anyone has any question, I urge them to ask me, or the Copperhead or Santiago.  This will undoubtedly be more helpful than asking someone on the bar stool next to you…

This is a full-sized, 8½ x 11 inch paper back, with color covers and black-and-white inside. Because of its large size is much easier to read than the pocket-sized edition produced locally.  The price for the full-size paperback is the same as the retail price for the e-book, US$30. For payment, lulu.com accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express and PayPal.

One other note: there was a Yankee Naval vessel holding station a few kilometers offshore for my house–obviously they were here in connection with that politicians visit.  I didn’t mind the ship that much, until I noticed that as I went from room to room its weapons readjusted accordingly…

My plan is to self publish–we already have an ISBN number for the book and we are talking with a few big places about selling it. But before we can get to that, we need to do two things: set a price, and find a way to get paid. Paypal seems to be the answer to the second question, and I am hoping you can help me with the first.

To help you better make that judgment, you can download the first part of the book, the cover page through the entire first chapter from this post. This includes a very detailed table of contents for you to study.

Free Intro to The Southron’s Guide to Living in Uruguay

(From MS Internet Explorer right click on the above link and select Save Target As… and copy to your computer. You will need the Free Adobe Reader to open the file. You can get it at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html)

Or go here:  http://www.uruguayliving.info/free.htm 

My plan is to also offer the book at a reduced price to retirees on limited incomes. I also will provide free updates during the first year to all registered purchasers. AND the book will be set up to allow printing at 120dpi.

I hope you will help me price this fairly. The “Owner’s Manual” published elsewhere is being sold for US$69/on sale for US$51. If this edition of The Southon’s Guide is successful, I hope to write a far more complete 2nd edition next year.