Paying bills early!

(Written beginning of 2013)

OK, I am a weirdo! I have long known this, as do people who know me well, but I do not like to owe any money – I used to run up debts, but as I have very limited income now I pay bills as soon as they arrive, and some I even pay before the invoice drops on the doormat (Brazilian postal and bill delivery system is nothing to write home about!).

As I am leaving Brazil for 6 months I have a young friend who will house sit for me and I have agreed to pay the utility bills while I am away, so thought I could easily pay them in advance (as the monthly amounts are pretty regular). I cannot open a bank account here so direct debit is out of the question (they will not accept direct debits drawn on overseas accounts), but I still, foolishly, believed that if I paid a lump sum in advance this would work, however neither water nor electric will allow this, but my internet provider will. This means that I have to leave my friend with the money, and hope that he pays the bills in time for me.

While I am away my vehicle tax (both car and trail bike) fall due (not due till May 2013), and though this can be paid by instalments, the final payment would be due before I return, so I wondered if I could pay this early too (now this idea tells everyone here I am totally loco – paying a bill over 4 months BEFORE it is due!). Apparently so – all you have to do is find an ATM machine, in a bank, and this can generate the necessary invoice to pay, so off I go and generate both sets of paperwork. Brazilian vehicle tax includes third party insurance, which is compulsory, and, oddly, the insurance for my bike is almost three times that for the car, but what caught my eye was that there was an outstanding fine showing on the car bill. I knew nothing about this so went round to the Department of Transport (Detran) office in town and enquired about it. He does not have a computer so cannot look into it, but suggests I look online on the Detran website – there is a search facility for your vehicle on there. I duly look, and that comes up with no outstanding fines against my vehicle (either of them, I checked the other just in case). I did receive a speeding ticket 2 years ago (yes, naughty of me, but one problem here is that road signage is few and far between here, and after a speed reduction area, there is rarely an “end of limit” sign!) which I paid (I will keep the process required for that for a later post!), and received a discount for prompt payment – another reason I pay my bills expeditiously – but wondered whether that was somehow still on the system. I checked the website of the transport authority that issued the fine, and, again, had no fines outstanding there.

I paid the car tax, as it takes 10 working days for the registration documents to get back to you, and I was leaving in less than three weeks, but decided to go the 45 miles to the next town which has a larger Detran office, and see if I could get to the bottom of it. There was a long, disorganised, queue but eventually it was my turn, and he entered the details of my vehicle in his system, and then told me there was no fine against my car! I showed him the document so he sighed, then typed some more, and produced a print-out showing I was caught speeding 33 months previously (April 2010) near a city on the way to Salvador. Now I never received any notification of this, though I will accept it is possible, nay likely, that I committed the offence, but he had no answer as to why it never appeared on my 2011 or 2012 renewal documents, or why any notification was not received. Interestingly the fine I had to pay was 20% less than the amount on the printout, so it looks as though I got a discount – for prompt payment?