Chapala property tax payments start Monday Jan 6th

So like a good boy I went today to pay my property taxes and water and business license.

The offices for payment of property taxes and business licenses are closed and open Monday, January 6, 2014 although SIMAPA is open today and tomorrow for water payments. Keep this in mind to only make one trip.

At 8.30am there was a big line to make vehicle payments at the recaudadora office, who would have thought that!?

Thanks for the heads-up, Spencer. Question: if the actual form for property tax payments from previous years is lost, how can one make payment- is there another form of document that is accepted as proof of ownership? Can a neighbor or Power of Attorney go in to pay for me on my behalf if I am away?

I just walked in there, showed them a CFE bill with my address on it, they used that to look it up and I paid it. They don't care who pays it as long as someone does. Was quite higher than last year. $1200 vs. $1700.

CanuckBob wrote:Was quite higher than last year. $1200 vs. $1700.

Well then, I'm confident you'll see a 41.7% improvement in services.

Pffffffffffft.

Mine only went from 700 to like 780, pretty negligible.

Just a couple of suggestions here - this is a predictable event and apparently residents often don't remember from one year to the next. How about a pinned post that gives the procedure, the address, the hours, and maybe helpful hints? At the end of the season, the pinned message could be deleted because the details may change the following year.

Meanwhile, people are free to complain just how much their property taxes and water rates have gone up!

Sometimes they care about who pays it. WHen we first bought the house we paid the taxes and continue to pay them for 3 or 4 years and one year I was told I could not pay the tax bill because it was still in the name of the trust fund from two owners before,,I obviously was not the only one not paying attention . It took us a year to be able to pay the bill because , it took tha long for the bill to be changed. and that is using the help of the notario who had not done the paperwork or maybe who had not pushed city hall into producing the right paperwork. They would not allow us to pay it without changing the name...So you just never know when someone wakes up and tells you , you cannot pay it...

The taxes can be paid via Internet so no need to go there but since it is a 5 minute process it is no big deal one way or another.

brigitte wrote:The taxes can be paid via Internet so no need to go there but since it is a 5 minute process it is no big deal one way or another.

That 5 minute process took place after a 2 hour wait for my neighbors this past Monday.
I wait until the end of January and skip the lineups.    

brigitte wrote:Sometimes they care about who pays it. WHen we first bought the house we paid the taxes and continue to pay them for 3 or 4 years and one year I was told I could not pay the tax bill because it was still in the name of the trust fund from two owners before,,I obviously was not the only one not paying attention . It took us a year to be able to pay the bill because , it took tha long for the bill to be changed. and that is using the help of the notario who had not done the paperwork or maybe who had not pushed city hall into producing the right paperwork. They would not allow us to pay it without changing the name...So you just never know when someone wakes up and tells you , you cannot pay it...

That exact scenario just happened to me with Simapa. All I had with me was a CFE bill to show the address which of course also showed them the name was different on the account. They told me to go home and get my deed so they could change the name. I told them there was no problem last year. She just smiled and said the CFE bill would be proof enough so she changed the name and we finished the transaction. Viva Mexico.

You are lucky it was Simapa and not the Predial, it is easy to change the name on the water bill but it took a year for us to be able to change the name on the tax bill and we had to have a notario involved.

When we bought our house the RE agent changed everything for us (CFE, TelMex, Predial, etc.) and submitted proof of such. I had told him I would do Simapa myself but when I went in last year they just grabbed the address from me and gave me the amount to pay so I didn't bother. This year they were a little more diligent I suppose. Anyhow, it is done now so all is good.