Are you thinking of putting your household goods into storage before moving to Mexico?
Don’t!
... until you read this.
What You Must Know Before Storing Household Goods for a Move to Mexico
Here at Best Mexico Movers, we hear from people all the time who tell us that their items are in storage and they are now ready to move to Mexico.
After I ask them questions about their inventories and insurance preferences, I very often hear a lament along the lines of “I wish I had known this before I put my stuff into storage. Now, I have to do it all over again.”
This booklet is designed to give you the information you need to know before you move your items to storage.
Two inventory documents are required...
The first thing you need to know is that there could be two inventories you will need for your move to Mexico: one for customs and one for insurance. You should do these inventories before you put your items into storage, so you won’t have to do them later, when you might have to open boxes to find out what’s in them. Let’s discuss the inventory for customs first.
Customs Inventory for Moving to Mexico—the Menaje de Casa
The menaje de casa is the method by which the Mexican government allows certain foreigners with residency visas and returning Mexican citizens with valid Mexican passports to import their used household goods to Mexico one-time tax free. Any legitimate mover will import our household goods into Mexico using the menaje de casa.
All customs inventories for moving used household goods to Mexico on the menaje de casa have one thing in common: they list all significant powered items separately and each listed powered item has on the inventory each item’s make, model, and serial number. (A “powered item” is generally one that plugs into a wall or is battery-operated, but it could also include gas-powered items such as lawn mowers.)
After that, the requirements for your customs inventory on the menaje de casa can change based on the requirements of your mover and, if needed, the requirements of the Mexican consulate closest to where you would start your move. Most movers require that you get your menaje de casa inventory certified by the local Mexican consulate, or they will not move your household goods on the menaje de casa. It is a very good idea to ask your mover before you put your items into storage if your mover will need for you to go to the consulate or not.
Inventory Requirements for the Menaje de Casa can Vary, Depending on Lots of Factors
What are the requirements of the local consulate to certify your menaje de casa inventory? Each consulate can have their own, so you’ll have to ask. (And don’t rely only on what they have on their website, because it could be wrong or outdated.)
One requirement that almost all the consulates have is that, if you are not a Mexican national, your residency visa (typically a temporal or a permanente) must have been issued six months or less in the past. If your visa is more than six months old, they will refuse to certify your menaje de casa inventory. This means that if you don’t meet this requirement and your mover requires that your inventory be certified, your mover cannot move your household goods on the menaje de casa, which essentially means that they cannot move your household goods at all with this mover. (If this applies to you, please don’t panic. Please contact us and we’ll see if we can help you.)
Items that are Prohibited on the Menaje de Casa
Some items are prohibited on a menaje de casa, so you must not have them in your inventory or on your shipment. Here is a list we use. (Please note that this is only our list and that your mover and / or your consulate may have a different list, and you would need to comply with what each of them want; not what we want.) Ignorance or a bad memory are not valid excuses. If Mexican customs officials find a prohibited item in your shipment and your excuse is that your shipment was in storage for a long time so you forgot, it will make no difference. Please make 100% certain that you do not have any prohibited items in your shipment. If you do, the consequences could be severe.
The Insurance Inventory for Moving your Household Goods to Mexico
The other inventory document you may need for your shipment is the insurance inventory. If you move with a legitimate mover, you will need to purchase insurance. Insurance can cover you just for loss or for loss and damages. Please make sure you know which one you are getting.
If your insurance covers you for loss, you will need to number each box and describe the items in the box on your inventory. Why? Because, for example, if Box 19 goes missing, the insurance company will ask “What was in Box 19?” And to make your claim you will need to know the answer, so your inventory needs to be specific enough to cover any claim you may make.
If your insurance covers you for damages, you will need to list any significant item that you want covered. (The insurance company we use mandates that any item worth $500 or more must be listed separately.) If you have a very valuable item, you may want to take a picture of it as well. It wouldn’t hurt.
Understanding the Insurance Term “Proper Care and Control”
In order to provide you coverage for damages, most insurance companies will demand that your insured items are in the “care and control” of a legitimate packer and loader, and a storage unit that is not self-storage. The reason the insurance companies exclude at a minimum damage coverage for any shipment that was in self-storage is that the insurance company has no idea what happened while your items were in self-storage and there is no responsible, independent third-party to manage it, so your insurance company will only cover your shipment if it was in the storage facility of a legitimate mover. If, in the alternative, your household goods were in self-storage and you wanted coverage for damages, you would need for your legitimate packers and loaders to re-pack any item for which you want insurance coverage for damages and place that item directly in the truck, not back into self-storage.
If your household goods were packed by legitimate packers and loaders, inventoried properly and transported to their storage facility, most insurance companies would find this to be in the proper care and control and would extend coverage from when the movers started handling your household goods, through their storage, to your final destination. This of course, assumes that all the paperwork is done properly. (We work with moving and storage companies all the time, so if you would like us to make an introduction for you, please just let us know.)
Template Inventory Document for You to Use
We developed a “Master Inventory” document (Download it) that you can use in order to document your shipment before it goes into storage. It has instructions, examples, and you can type right into it. While we can’t guarantee that it will work for all movers and all consulates, it certainly works for us.
Summary
- Always create a customs inventory of your household goods before your goods go into storage, whether you are putting your items into self-storage or the storage of a moving and storage company.
- If you want coverage for damages, get your certificate of insurance before the packers and loaders start to pack and use a legitimate mover with storage facilities, because if you don’t, you’ll need to have whoever does your final packing and loading re-pack all the items for which you want coverage for damages.
- And last but not least, NEVER have any items in your shipment that are prohibited on the menaje de casa. Ever.
Download a free copy of this article as a PDF you can read later and even print out:
More Free Guides
If you’re researching moving your household goods to Mexico, here’s some additional free info for you:
- Concerned about the cost of moving to Mexico? Learn your moving cost options.
- Confused about what order to do things in? See the Checklist of paperwork for moving to Mexico.
- And our original booklet: What you need to know to move your household goods to Mexico.
