Registration and Titling of our Fifth Wheel

In the USA you are given “title” for your vehicle to prove ownership and registration from what I understand is your “tags” so the dealer will FedEx the paperwork to you which needs to be signed and witnessed by a Public Notary. A public notary is similar to a JP just internationally recognised, they are usually lawyers with 15 years experience or more. Shop around as they charge per signature witnessed. This can be $70 for the first witnessed signature to $199 for 3? I got all 3 done for $80. One of the forms is a “power of attorney” so the dealer can provide you with 30 day tags. In Australia the dealer just registers the vehicle no problems, no power of attorney needed. This was another trap, we had to give power of attorney to the dealer first (30 day tags) and then again to my brother in law so he could register it in both our names in his home state of Ohio, another $30 for the public notary. As the 30 days tags had run out we then had to pay a “penalty” of $30 to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Ohio.
Tags are self explanatory in that if gives you 30 days of registration. This seems to be the norm in the USA and makes sense as people often travel across states to purchase vehicles and then register them in their home state.

Well all was going just great until….
My brother in law attempted to register our trailer in Ohio and even with power of attorney it was impossible. Since 9/11 everything has changed but in short because the US does not have identity cards they use among other things a SSN or Social Security Number and of course non residents don’t have one. About 2005 an act was introduced called the “real ID” act. In an effort to stop identity fraud the various states have committed to tightening up ID requirements. So in short you can buy a vehicle in the USA, as in have title, you can insure a vehicle in the USA but you cannot register a vehicle in the USA without a SSN, with exception to a couple of states but rest assured they will come in to line with the rest very soon. So another visit to the notary public to assign full ownership to my brother in law and with some luck and no further red tape we will have our trailer on the road.

So unless you have a trusted relative or friend or you start an LLC any long term vehicle travel/ownership in the US it seems is all but impossible unless it’s a hire car.

Don’t forget stamp duty it can be different for each state but most states are about 7%, that is unless you start a LLC in a non tax state in this instance no sales tax.

Remember you will need to store you vehicle till you get there. Check storage and security, I stored at Holman Motors as they have good rates, $50 per month, not covered but they do have a nightwatchman on site, another option is to buy a cover which costs about $500-00.

So when it comes time to purchase our truck the only solution is to buy it and just title it to my brother in law.


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Brisbane

Paying For Our Fifth Wheel

As we all know going on a short holiday overseas and arranging your money these days is pretty straight forward, you duck down town get some Aussie dollars converted to US dollars or what ever currency you need, let your bank know you will be overseas and to expect overseas transactions on your credit card. One of the safest options is a Travellex card, basically a debit card in your required currency. Of course with these options you pay a fee or you convert at a lesser rate and the bank skims the difference to cover their costs. This is a great way to do short term, however in our instance, that is 12 months, the amount we would pay in fees/commissions would be rather excessive.
I did not want to pay the exorbitant fees the banks charge not withstanding the woeful exchange rates they offered.
As usual the Internet came to the rescue and after some research I found an Australian site Ozforex Foreign Exchange Services, generally they do transfers to the US for a cost of about 1% off the current advertised rate and transactions greater than $10,000-00 are fee free.
I spoke to them and signed up straight away, and from memory my first three transactions were free. I was initially hoping to transfer amounts into my Travellex card but they only do transfers to bank accounts, no problem I will just open a US bank account or so I thought?

Not harping on 9/11 to much but once again since 9/11, doing so much in the US appears to require you to jump through dozens of hoops! (don't know how all the illegal Mexicans do it). To cut a long story short unless you have US social security number (SSN) your pretty much up the creek without a paddle, with a Limited Liability Company (LLC) your fine but to my knowledge this is about it until I was trolling through forums and found out that HSBC Bank might be able to help. The deal is you open an account with them and once you have banked with them for 3-6 months they will arrange an introduction to their US Company, and of course there is a fee $250-00 and they do not guarantee acceptance. Well we opened an account as it was our only option. Then a week later my brother in law advised us that we could open a joint account at his bank, we just had to provide our passports when we arrived, fantastic, problem solved.

To actually pay for the trailer Holmans provided me with their bank details and I did a direct transfer through Ozforex. They provide great service, you put your order in and within 15 minutes they rang to confirm it and that was 1-15 am in the morning. The next step is to Bpay the funds to Ozforex and it's all done, I had confirmation from Holmans 36 hours later, the trailer was now ours.


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Brisbane

Photos of our New Heartland Sundance

This is Ron's kitchen. It's well appointed and has all the mod cons.


The main bedroom showing the slide out wardrobe


This is the lounge room complete with a TV that drops down into the cabinet when not in use.


A well styled front to help fuel efficiency!


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Brisbane