When you decide to live, relocate in a new country most probably you won't know the local language.
There fore it is extremely important to get the most knowledgeable person to help you sort out the daily chores associated with getting an insurance, importing a car, setting up a business..
The first place you should consult is your embassy.. As they have always a list of professionals that they have screened and can recommend with the certainty that they will be do the job.
I found out with my personal experience is that they do very good for general matters and they are very used to urban practices...
In the case of Guatemala for example when you want to invest outside the Capital or the main expat destination of Antigua. You encounter situations for example regarding land ownership that the lawyers from the city are not familiar therefore either will discourage you to do the deal or will give you hill advise recommendation to not knowing the local way of doing business.
The second place to find out recommendation for doctors, vets, and professionals of any kind it is on
the expat blogs.. I have found that expatexchange.com is a good provider of information as I personally contribute to the forums.. and the most used are the Facebook different groups of your country of destination...
Now I have been witness of embarrassing situation for expats where very often an expat used a lawyer to do some work that have to do with taxes for example and find out somebody recommended
by their landlord or through a Facebook page.. Always the argument is that these persons are insiders and get the job done quicker and cheaper... Well I know of cases when the expat whom have not yet got their residency have their passports doing the visa run.. basically you pay somebody to go to the border (Mexican One) and they give the appearance that you have gone to Mexico for a couple of days or 3 days and then come back to Guatemala allowing you to start another round of 2 tourist visa of 90 days. But the system has been modernized tremendously to make it more efficient and less corruptable.. As each time you could bribe somebody or at least the person offering the services of Visa Run you will be pretending to have leaved the country without having step out a foot..
So sometimes when expats will go to the airport they would have the bad surprised of not being in the computer as their stamps of exit and entry to Guatemala have not been recorder.. Giving you delay, headache and fine to pay...
Rarely Guatemala Immigration will banned you to come back.
This is an easy one to solve the worst is when you deal with process involving taxes to be paid.. you have to really use an accountant or "tramitador" you really can trust as so many expats who had business suddenly find out after a tax revision that all their taxes paid never got into the government vault.. but into the accountant you have used who had falsified deposit , signature and what ever was needed to make your taxes like they have been paid..
The worst case is for an expat that have used a "tramitador" (acceptance agent) recommended by somebody they thought they knew (a Guatemalan) and at the moment to leave by road the country they found themselves stock at the border because the custom agent can't find their last payment to renew the car visa as it appears never been paid and the document as receipt they exhibit are false.
Which put them in a very delicate position as they as well liable for having used a false acceptance agent and expose themselves to jail because it is a big felony and have to leave the country asap before they could be indicted by the justice. It doesn't mean they will lose their car but they will have to hire a lawyer to look into the case and pull out the right string to get their car release and being driven back to their own country..
Never work with somebody that doesn't have an office, that gives you only a phone number and his name.. no business name or card... Phones stopped to be answered and with only one name you can't do much..
So always privileged licensed professionals. (insurance broker, realtor) with formal office and workshop and with clients you can speak with for references..
Having these procedures in mind at the moment to contract professionals services will save you time
and if they might be a little bit more money then what some people want you to believe it is extra money worth to be paid as it is less problem in the future.
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