Border letter

Greentreena wrote:
I've been asked in my trailer is mine; never any questions about loans or leins. I'm quite certain a border guard could care less who financed your RV or that it has a lein on it.

Perhaps, "could NOT care less. The information request was from the lender/lien holder, not the border personnel of Canada, US or Mexico.
Therefore they border folks truly could not care less.

I've been asked in my trailer is mine; never any questions about loans or leins. I'm quite certain a border guard could care less who financed your RV or that it has a lein on it.

N6761U wrote:
I was just looking at my online statement for the loan on my 5th wheel and noticed something about a Border Letter. After opening it I discovered that in order to take my RV into Canada or Mexico I must first make a request 30 days prior to leaving stating when I will leave and when I will return. In turn they (BofA) will send me a Border Letter (permission slip) to take the RV out of the Country. Has anyone else discovered this with there loans.

Steve

I wonder how many autos and trucks cross those two borders with liens on them?????????????????????????? Sounds a little strange to me.

You would be surprised at the number of insurance policies that have limited Canada / Medico coverage. Especially if you spend significant amounts of time there (3+month). Generally people are ignorant of this unless they actually read the fine print of their actual policy which is usually found online these days. Even agents and phone reps are clueless.

Some companies will get you if you have an out of state policy in states like NJ which have unliminted PIP clauses. You can run into issues if you enter a state like that which a company doesn't have a presence for a particular reason and end up staying there for a long time meeting registration requirements which means in state insurance.

Most of the time its not an issue because people don't get into accidents that often in our rate group and people generally don't stick around long in states other than their registered one but if you have a serious accident the company might start looking for reasons to not pay.

The rules that govern insurance / vehicle registration are the same regardless if you're a full timer traveling, spending 4 months visiting mom and dad or some jack-a-mo who moved from Maine to Mass and wants to keep his Maine insurance and registration because it is much cheaper.

I've had my FW to May-hee-co twice, but never thought twice about it, other than to call my agent to make sure I'd be covered. Would never have thought about Canada. I have no intentions to go back to May-hee-co, so that's a moot point.

Lyle

It's likely expensive to repo out of country, so if you were a deadbeat and didn't pay the note, you could roll the rig into Mexico and tell BoA to come and get it. Sounds like so-called border letter is more to let BoA know the rig is out of the country, and and was said to be be sure insurance will cover it while it's there.

If it's a law, it's there to protect the lender, not you, so there is nobody to "catch" you in Mexico. Sure BoA could call the loan if they found out, but likely wouldn't, and even if they did, likely couldn't get to the rig to repo it anyway.

That said I would play by the rules and get the letter if I needed it. I have not seen any such requirement in my USAA loan docs/

downtheroad wrote:
Wondering if it has anything to do with your insurance coverage...since B of A basically owns your rig, maybe they want to make sure that you have out of country coverage...??

This would certainly make sense. They may be just looking out for their interests here.

The law says if the RV is financed, it MUST have that letter in order to be taken into Mexico and I believe Canada has the same law. However, most folks do not acquire the required letter and as long as there is NO reference on your registration as to a lien holder, no one is the wiser. However, if you are caught in a foreign country without the letter, I imagine the lien holder has the right to call the loan. A catch 22 situation.

Wondering if it has anything to do with your insurance coverage...since B of A basically owns your rig, maybe they want to make sure that you have out of country coverage...??

Never heard of that before, and we took ours into Canada last year. No one asked for anything other than our passports.