do you ever have trouble getting registration papers from a breeder?

My family purchased three registered Chi heifers and three registered Maine Anjou heifers in September and October. These are all March and April 2014 babies that will be shown this coming year and then used to improve the cow herd (actually...help to start a registered herd. Our three kids have shown largely commercial steers and heifers previously.)

Prior to purchasing the animals, I asked the seller about registration papers. They each said something like, "I will work on those for you"...or "I will get them to you". I trusted their word, loaded up the heifers, and paid for them, because who is going to let you load up an animal and take off with her without paying??

I bought some of the heifers from their original owner, but some of them had already been purchased from the breeder and then re-sold to me. Some of the registration papers came surprisingly quickly, but not all of them. I purchased the first heifer on Labor Day. I finally received her papers yesterday (in January). It turns out that she was purchased from the breeder and then sold again before I purchased her (I am her fourth owner.) I am still waiting on the last set of papers. I needed them last week to register for a show that we had planned on going to.

Questions...
1-Does this happen a lot? Both the ACA and the AMA have told me that it happens more than you would think.

2-How do you avoid this? No one is going to let you drive away without paying for an animal, so you can't use that as leverage to get registration papers. So how do I know that their word is good when they tell me that they will get the animal registered?

It happens quite a bit I would guess.  Buying from a reputable breeder solves a lot of these problems.  On a lot of these clubby deals I would make sure the seller understands that you believe you are bidding on a papered animal before you bid on the calf.  It seems like an unnecessary step but a lot of these traders could care less about the associations or breed integrity.  I see a lot of online sales where they are advertised as maintainer, chi or shorthorn plus and I have to wonder if they are actually papered or just being marketed as such.  A lot of these calves have been in multiple hands like you said which just compounds the problem. 

You are lucky that the Maine and Chi associations are a couple of the easiest associations to get papers from (sad but true) if the sellers do decide to make it right.