URGENT: Landing through thousand islands bridge in personal (financed) car.

[thisworks]

Folks,

My wife, our dog and I will be short-landing through thousand islands bridge (Landsdowne) on Wednesday 11 July. We plan to drive there from NYC in our Nissan Altima car, which is being financed and the loan hasn't been paid off as yet. Thus, I don't have the title with me ( but I do have the registration ).

My wife has a US embassy appointment for her H1b visa stamping in Ottawa on 12 July. We plan to be in Canada for 7-10 days depending on when she gets her passport back.

Today while making my plans, I stumbled upon some people's negative experiences while landing using their own car. The issue seems to be that a personal car needs to be exported in the first instance of landing itself, even if the first landing is only for a few days and the car will be going back to the US.


Here are my questions:

1) Could a CBSA officer refuse entry to me and my wife when we go to the thousand island bridge in our (financed) car because it hasn't been exported?
2) Should I declare this car on my 'Goods to follow' list? I plan to tell the officers that I can't export the car right now because the loan hasn't been paid off - that's the truth as well.

3) I am afraid of a scenario where the officer refuses entry to me or my wife, and then my wife can't enter back in US because she doesn't have a stamped Visa. One solution I am thinking is to go to the border together, then if my car cannot enter Canada, I would come back to US while my wife will take a taxi to kingston and then a train to Ottawa by herself (very inconvenient)

Or am I just overthinking this?

 

[APPNOV2014NY]

1. Yes. CBSA officer can refuse entry esp. since you won't be carrying title. It would be CBSA officers' discretion. Please note that you will be dealing with CBSA officers' at 2 places: Once at checkpoint and other time inside CBSA office. Chances of getting refusal is high. However, I do know people who managed to land with personal car without exporting/importing.

I did my soft landing with personal car without importing. In my case, CBSA agents' raise their eyebrows when I told them that I was not importing personal car. I told CBSA agents' that I am doing soft landing and would be turning around and returning to USA after finishing formalities at CBSA office. I had car title with me. In next trip, I took rental car and no-one checked car papers. It really depends from officer to officer.

An acquaintance of mine landed on thousand island bridge and CBSA agents' were cool about him not importing car.

2. Yes. Please mention car in "Goods to Follow"

3. If refused then may be your wife can return back to US using AVR

 

[thisworks]

1. Yes. CBSA officer can refuse entry esp. since you won't be carrying title. It would be CBSA officers' discretion. Please note that you will be dealing with CBSA officers' at 2 places: Once at checkpoint and other time inside CBSA office. Chances of getting refusal is high. However, I do know people who managed to land with personal car without exporting/importing.

I did my soft landing with personal car without importing. In my case, CBSA agents' raise their eyebrows when I told them that I was not importing personal car. I told CBSA agents' that I am doing soft landing and would be turning around and returning to USA after finishing formalities at CBSA office. I had car title with me. In next trip, I took rental car and no-one checked car papers. It really depends from officer to officer.

An acquaintance of mine landed on thousand island bridge and CBSA agents' were cool about him not importing car.

2. Yes. Please mention car in "Goods to Follow"

3. If refused then may be your wife can return back to US using AVR

Thanks for sharing your experience appnov. I have decided to take the risk by bringing my car. Today morning I called the agents at CBSA thousand Islands and they were OK with me importing it later.

May I ask where did you land?

 

[APPNOV2014NY]

Thanks for sharing your experience appnov. I have decided to take the risk by bringing my car. Today morning I called the agents at CBSA thousand Islands and they were OK with me importing it later.

May I ask where did you land?

I did my landing in Quebec at Champlain–St. Bernard de Lacolle.

 

[thisworks]

I managed to land without any issues in Canada. I put my personal car on 'goods to follow' list.

 

[JaiCanada]

I managed to land without any issues in Canada. I put my personal car on 'goods to follow' list.

Thanks for sharing this info @thisworks. I didn't realize there's so much procedure involved.

Would like to know suggestions for my current situation:
- We plan to soft land in the next few weeks (at Toronto airport)
- we have a car that has less than 2 years of loan payments left
- Planning to buy an another car just before soft landing, on a 5 yr loan
- one car will be driven between Toronto and NYC once or twice a month. Other will remain in NYC area.
- Wife and I planning to make final move to Canada in Summer 2019, so we'll need two cars till then.

Q1) Since I wont have titles for both the cars, would it be an issue if I'm adding these two cars to the goods to follow list?
Q2) Would it be better to just pay off existing car, and buy the other new car in Canada? Would there be an issue of using it between Canada/US until we move to Canada for good?
Q3) After having it on the GTF list, can we keep the new car we buy in the US, pay off it's remaining loan amount and then import it to Canada as part of the GTF items?

Any other suggestions?

 

[saddlepatch]

Thanks for sharing this info @thisworks. I didn't realize there's so much procedure involved.

Would like to know suggestions for my current situation:
- We plan to soft land in the next few weeks (at Toronto airport)
- we have a car that has less than 2 years of loan payments left
- Planning to buy an another car just before soft landing, on a 5 yr loan
- one car will be driven between Toronto and NYC once or twice a month. Other will remain in NYC area.
- Wife and I planning to make final move to Canada in Summer 2019, so we'll need two cars till then.

Q1) Since I wont have titles for both the cars, would it be an issue if I'm adding these two cars to the goods to follow list?
Q2) Would it be better to just pay off existing car, and buy the other new car in Canada? Would there be an issue of using it between Canada/US until we move to Canada for good?
Q3) After having it on the GTF list, can we keep the new car we buy in the US, pay off it's remaining loan amount and then import it to Canada as part of the GTF items?

Any other suggestions?

My understanding from what I've researched and what others have told me is that there is no way to bring in a car that is being paid off still, it will be refused almost 99% of the time. If I'm wrong, I too am interested in learning what other options there might be.

Sadly we will need to sell ours back to the dealer(and most likely still make payments back to the bank even though we won't own the car anymore) as the chances of us having the car paid off by the time we're approved is slim. Our interest rate is 26% and we can only afford to make min-payments. We got the car on a whim due to our old car breaking down and costing us 300-500 per month to keep on the road. We couldn't get approved for financing on anything lower than 13k or older than 2012.

I'm confused by this thread, as it sounds that some people are able to get a car with no title into Canada? Idk what a soft landing is. We wouldn't be returning to the US once the application is approved.

If there are other options or if anyone could give me recommendations on how to go about selling the car prior to moving even if I still owe on it, that would be great!

 

[northern sunshine]

My understanding from what I've researched and what others have told me is that there is no way to bring in a car that is being paid off still, it will be refused almost 99% of the time. If I'm wrong, I too am interested in learning what other options there might be.

Sadly we will need to sell ours back to the dealer(and most likely still make payments back to the bank even though we won't own the car anymore) as the chances of us having the car paid off by the time we're approved is slim. Our interest rate is 26% and we can only afford to make min-payments. We got the car on a whim due to our old car breaking down and costing us 300-500 per month to keep on the road. We couldn't get approved for financing on anything lower than 13k or older than 2012.

I'm confused by this thread, as it sounds that some people are able to get a car with no title into Canada? Idk what a soft landing is. We wouldn't be returning to the US once the application is approved.

If there are other options or if anyone could give me recommendations on how to go about selling the car prior to moving even if I still owe on it, that would be great!

Soft landing is when you complete your landing formalities before permanently moving to Canada. For example, one might "land" in February, but then return to their home country for several months while they wrap up loose ends, then make the permanent move to Canada in November. Many people choose this option because it makes the transition easier, as they have time to get their affairs in order but also get their SIN and have official PR status before moving.

Because a soft landing isn't a "permanent" move, some officers are okay with you driving your own car as long as you explain that you're either selling it before the permanent move or will be importing it later during the permanent move (the car must be on your "goods to follow" list if the latter is the case). Some officers might give you a hard time about it though because they don't want to risk you dodging import taxes, since they know your intention is to move to Canada permanently.

If you are moving to Canada at the same time as you complete your landing formalities (so basically just one trip to Canada for everything rather than two or more) and driving your personal car, you will need to either import your car (which requires either the title or a letter of permission from the lienholder) or sell it before you move, otherwise you may run into issues both at the border and/or when you later try to import it, as you must also export your car from the US before you import it to Canada. I don't know what selling a car that you still owe on is like, but google has answers.

26% is wild! Holy cow.

 

[scylla]

My understanding from what I've researched and what others have told me is that there is no way to bring in a car that is being paid off still, it will be refused almost 99% of the time. If I'm wrong, I too am interested in learning what other options there might be.

Sadly we will need to sell ours back to the dealer(and most likely still make payments back to the bank even though we won't own the car anymore) as the chances of us having the car paid off by the time we're approved is slim. Our interest rate is 26% and we can only afford to make min-payments. We got the car on a whim due to our old car breaking down and costing us 300-500 per month to keep on the road. We couldn't get approved for financing on anything lower than 13k or older than 2012.

I'm confused by this thread, as it sounds that some people are able to get a car with no title into Canada? Idk what a soft landing is. We wouldn't be returning to the US once the application is approved.

If there are other options or if anyone could give me recommendations on how to go about selling the car prior to moving even if I still owe on it, that would be great!

Soft landing is when you come to Canada for a very short period of time (e.g. one day) just to trigger the PR visa and then return to another country - and move to Canada at a later date (at which point you then import your car). Since you won't be returning to the US once the application is approved, you are doing a hard landing (i.e. moving to Canada) and have to import your vehicle right away. I agree that in 99% of cases you cannot import a car that is still being paid off. Lenders will not give you the authorization you need in order to do this.

 

[BackToOntario]

Soft landing is when you come to Canada for a very short period of time (e.g. one day) just to trigger the PR visa and then return to another country - and move to Canada at a later date (at which point you then import your car). Since you won't be returning to the US once the application is approved, you are doing a hard landing (i.e. moving to Canada) and have to import your vehicle right away. I agree that in 99% of cases you cannot import a car that is still being paid off. Lenders will not give you the authorization you need in order to do this.

Most lenders are not going to grant permission. They don't want the added hassle of international repossession if you were to stop making payments, and their entire business is centered around risk management. Then again, any lender charging 26% APR is already pretty sketchy (the max allowed in Louisiana is 18%). I would err on the side of it's not going to work, and start coming up with a Plan B.

I'm going to have roughly a year left on my leased vehicle when we move next summer. I know they won't allow me to import it - I'm not even going to waste time asking. We have another, slightly older vehicle that is paid off. My options are A) sell the paid off vehicle privately and put that $$ towards purchasing the leased 2018 vehicle outright, or B) find a dealership would be willing to purchase the leased vehicle and pay whatever the payoff amount happens to be, and then take the older one with us to Canada.

 

[saddlepatch]

Most lenders are not going to grant permission. They don't want the added hassle of international repossession if you were to stop making payments, and their entire business is centered around risk management. Then again, any lender charging 26% APR is already pretty sketchy (the max allowed in Louisiana is 18%). I would err on the side of it's not going to work, and start coming up with a Plan B.

I'm going to have roughly a year left on my leased vehicle when we move next summer. I know they won't allow me to import it - I'm not even going to waste time asking. We have another, slightly older vehicle that is paid off. My options are A) sell the paid off vehicle privately and put that $$ towards purchasing the leased 2018 vehicle outright, or B) find a dealership would be willing to purchase the leased vehicle and pay whatever the payoff amount happens to be, and then take the older one with us to Canada.

Yeah, we didn't have plans to import just cause we can't seem to get our care refinanced. We have too many charge offs sadly, even though all our car payments are on time, no missed payments etc. We joined a credit union and hoping to re-try in 6 months. I don't think Florida has a cap and if they do, it's higher. Again we got the car on a whim due to our other one costing us too much to keep on the road.

I hope a dealer will buy our car back or I'll just have to call and see what my options are. We might "lease" it to a friend but that's risky. Do you know anything about reselling it to a dealer or what options there are? I'm a noob to all this with cars. Never had to fiance one in the past. Mine were always bought straight out.

 

[BackToOntario]

Yeah, we didn't have plans to import just cause we can't seem to get our care refinanced. We have too many charge offs sadly, even though all our car payments are on time, no missed payments etc. We joined a credit union and hoping to re-try in 6 months. I don't think Florida has a cap and if they do, it's higher. Again we got the car on a whim due to our other one costing us too much to keep on the road.

I hope a dealer will buy our car back or I'll just have to call and see what my options are. We might "lease" it to a friend but that's risky. Do you know anything about reselling it to a dealer or what options there are? I'm a noob to all this with cars. Never had to fiance one in the past. Mine were always bought straight out.

The buyer (in this case, a dealership) would send the quoted final payoff amount to the lienholder. You sign a document allowing them to make the payoff and for them to receive & sign over the title from the lienholder. That process might vary slightly from State to State. The only issue would be if you owe more than the amount they are willing to give you to purchase the vehicle from you. Typically they follow the same pricing guidelines they would if you were trading it in... of course, they may lowball even more since they don't get to sell another vehicle in the process.