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ARTICLE | REAL ESTATE

BUYING PROPERTY IN COSTA RICA 101-A PRIMER You have visited Costa Rica, possibly several trips and you love it and you are ready to buy your own place in Paradise, great, you are making a wonderful decision!

14 COSTA RICA REAL ESTATE MAGAZINE as you do your homework properly! Do it right and you will be very happy but if you don´t do your due diligence and work with expert real estate and legal help to guide you, then you are basically rolling the dice and hoping to win. A big plus is that the foreign owner of property in Costa Rica has the same constitutional rights as Costa Rican citizens. One key piece of advice not usually given is that you should choose a good lawyer who will be the key person in getting things done correctly and safely in Costa Rica. Even before picking a Real Estate pro- fessional, find a good lawyer, preferably one who works daily with the area you are interested in buying your property in, although some San José lawyers are also excellent real estate specialists. A good lawyer will advice you on any pit- falls you might not have seen or even know about, and also knows who the reputable real estate firms or individuals in the chosen area are and can also help you to begin your residency application. In Costa Rica, mostly all land is titled, and those titles are registered and kept at the offices of the Public Registry in San José (the Capital city) in the Property Section (Registro de la Propiedad). Most titles are currently organized by means of a computerized system called the ¨Folio Real¨. A property ownership transfer re- quires that both the buyer and the seller sign a deed before a Costa Rican Notary Public (whose concept is different from the ones in many other countries such as Canada and the United States and is re- quired to formalize all transactions deal- ing with real estate transfers) and that the deed is then recorded at the Public F ew places have all the pluses that Costa Rica can offer for retirement, relocation and investment, so long

Registry. Nearly all purchases require a due diligence period of 30 to 60 days so an Option to Buy-Sell is signed (Opción de Compra-Venta) where the key items are specified such as the property reg- istry information, the price, the option term, broker commissions and the key due diligence points that must be met in order for the down payment (given with signing of option) to be released to the seller by the Escrow company. Do not give the option money (which is usu- ally 10% unless agreed otherwise mu- tually), to the seller or his lawyer. Your lawyer should have a reputable escrow company he or she works with that will act as the independent third party in the transaction and that will abide by the op- tion to buy contract stipulations. For your protection always use your own trusted lawyer to look out for your interests and do not agree to use the seller´s lawyer as that opens you up to big potential trouble. All titled land in Costa Rica, whether it is registered following the newer ¨Folio Real¨ system or the older book/page/en- try system, can be accurately and safely title-searched in order to determine all relevant aspects on the specific proper- ty, such as ownership, mortgages, liens, annotations or other issues, that may af- fect ownership rights or the possibility of transferring said property to a third party. Title searches on ¨Folio Real¨ proper- ties may be initiated in the computer system, which is accessible online but will then possibly require a follow-up in the book/page/entry system, particularly when the computer search shows liens, encumbrances or other property charac- teristics that were ¨inherited¨ from older transactions on that land before it was transferred to the ¨Folio Real¨ system. Additionally, although the computer sys-

tem will indicate a list of liens and en- cumbrances, in most cases a thorough and complete title search will require the review of microfilmed or scanned documents indicating the details of such finds, which are not accessible online and can only be obtained at the offices of the Public Registry. Although, as indicated, the ¨Folio Real¨ is accessible online, generally private parties do not have the legal training to be able to accurately interpret the in- formation acquired, as well as to know how best to follow-up any required fur- ther steps. This is why it is highly rec- ommended that a knowledgeable legal professional be used to perform and re- port on the title search. In addition to the title search, if the property is owned by a corporation, it is essential to undertake a corporate search at the Commercial Section of the Public Registry. Only by doing so, can you verify that this corpo- rate entity transferring the property is in good standing and also that the pro- posed signatory of the transfer deed ac- tually does have the legal power to do this transfer. Another important item to keep in mind when buying a property is the USO DE SUELO (what you are allowed to build or do on that property). For example, if you are buying a lot or built property for com- mercial purposes but the land is desig- nated for residential use only then you need to know this. Or you want to buy a lot and put several units on it but are only allowed a single residence or you want to have a Bed & Breakfast, but the municipality does not allow it, etc., etc. All of these pitfalls can easily be avoided with the use of a good lawyer and proper due diligence and the additional help of a good real estate professional.