Buying A Home In Costa Rica

1. Municipality Tax Receipts – have the seller provide you with a ”paid in full” municipality property tax receipt for the quarter or the entire year. The community’s Municipality can provide that to you. Just bring the property ID number or Folio Real number.
2. Home Owner Association Fees – have the seller provide you with a “paid in full” receipt from the Home Owners Association or the Condominium Management, this applies for homes under association management.
3. National Registry – verify in the National Registry that the home or property does not have any liens or debts on the property. You can verify yourself at the National Registry a professional real estate agent or have an attorney verify for you.

Getting started– once you have found your perfect home, verified who owns the property and lastly you are satisfied with your due diligence, a call to action would be to place an offer. An offer contains three elements. The Price, Deposit Amount, and the Closing Date. Offers can be countered. This can be done written or verbal. A simple email to your agent with a written offer is a great way to show the seller that your intention to purchase is a serious one.. Once your offer is accepted, have your real estate agent or lawyer prepare a purchase agreement also known as “opcion comprar de venta”.

All properties also known as “finca” are registered with the National Registry with a property title number also known as the Folio Real Number. The Folio Real Number must be in the purchase agreement.  The property can be held in an individual’s name or a corporation, hence Sociedad (S.A.).  If the property is held by a corporation, then verify that the seller has the authority to sell the property or the corporation. If the seller agrees, you can buy the shares of the corporation to obtain the property / home. The other option you have is to simply transfer the property to yourself or to another corporation. An attorney can perform all due diligences and transfer of shares or properties.

If you plan on getting a mortgage, than the bank and their attorney will do all the due diligence and transfer of property or shares on your behalf.

Funding the Purchase / Transfer of Funds

On the date of your closing, the remaining balance can be paid by either a cashier check or an electronic bank transfer. If you are a foreigner with funds outside of Costa Rica, then using an escrow company would be ideally efficient. Clients have asked me “can I just open an account at a Costa Rican bank?” Yes you can. However, the local banks only allow foreigners to open accounts with small minimums such as $1000. This is because of terrorism and anti-money laundering policies. Dollar limits can be increased many months later by: building a relationship with the bank, providing tax returns on proof of income and lastly bank statements from your other bank accounts. Not an ideal process if you want to purchase real estate property quickly. Prefer a quicker process of transferring funds to Costa Rica? Then explore escrow companies. We highly recommend AFC Accounting & Trust. Many clients of RE/MAX Costa Rica have found their services to be a success. Escrow companies specialty are providing payment services to foreigners that desire to purchase Costa Rica real estate and insurance on the transfer of property. Escrow companies have a fully staffed compliance department  dedicated to qualifying procedures such as due diligence and “know your customer”. These procedures work more efficiently resulting in receiving large sums of money from foreigners and releasing the funds to Seller of the property quickly.

Buying a home in Costa Rica is a process, just like any other property you have bought. Further more,  if done correctly, that process can be a smooth one. Need guidance? Reach out to Anthony, he would be glad to hear from you and be of a help.