Car Registration

That's a simple title.... it is not a simple process.  See this picture, this is what I look like after nearly three months of working to get cars registered in the name of our company in Belgrade.  Let me take you through the process.  Nearly a year ago I was tasked with starting a company in Belgrade.  One of the things we wanted to do was be able to register cars with the company and not individuals.  This makes it easier for people to drive the cars since we constantly have personnel coming and going from the states.  So in July we got he company set up and in September we started the process of adding two of the cars.  First the company had to buy the cars from the individual owners.  Sounds easy enough.  Well this took a month of going to lawyers, mailing contracts, remailing contracts, drafting, stamping and mailing powers of attorney.  Finally at the end of October the cars were sold which took a whole day of me in line at the court for about two minutes of transaction and of course paying some unknown tax. Next was a little trip south (about 3 hours) to finish the sale.  See the cars in question are registered in Kraljevo so after they are sold to the company in Belgrade I have to go there to pay the taxes and return the license plates.  This little trip should have been it's own blog but lets just say if it wasn't for our friend Pauk (spider in Serbian), I would still be in Krajlevo.  So we got the taxes paid, turned in the plates, got temp plates (so we could drive the cars back to Belgrade).  Side note here, Jen and the girls went to Krajlevo with me so Jen could drive a car back.  Can I just say TROOPER.  She spent all day, like 10 hours, keeping the kids entertained at various parks, restraunts and coffee shops, she rocks.  When we got back to Belgrade the fun really started.  Tuesday I went to get the cars inspected.  Well after about two hours of really great conversation in Serbian, it was determined I did not need an inspection the present inspection was still valid so I just needed to go to the police station register the cars and bam, I'm done.  Since nothing is that easy and I was paying lawyers to help, I called them and came up with a plan.  Wednesday at 11 we would meet at the police station and we did.  After standing (I mean really standing) in line for 3 hours we paid taxes, completed forms and the lovely lady at the window informed us because our company was in a New Belgrade we need to go to the police station there.  This is not a big deal it's near our house so no problem right.  Well because of our 3 hours in line, it was to late for Wednesday so we decided we would meet Thursday morning at 9:00.  On Thursday we only stood in line for an hour and were cruely tricked.  The clerk took our paperwork looked it over got up and grabbed new plates. (I knew the end was near!) Then started pecking at her computer only to get an error message... She looks up and tells us since the previous owner of the car was a foreigner we needed to be at a different police station to finish the process.  YIKES, my cheerful optimism was waning big time.  So Miloš (the lawyer) and I headed to the police station on the far side of the moon.  Seriously I know I live in a mega city but we drove forever.  We finally arrived and went in.  We found the right window - no line I knew God was with us- We handed the lady our documents and walked out the door 30 minutes later with the above viewed plates!!!  Miloš and I were pretty happy and now we (our team) could drive the cars.  Welcome to a day in the life of an American in Eastern Europe