Monitoring Your Property In Costa Rica: Recommendations From Our Real Estate Team

Real estate fraud is rare, but it can happen. Costa Rica has strong security methods to guarantee a successful real estate transaction along with the possibility to implement safeguards after closing. Our Public Registry maintains all corporate records, ownership, and public titles as well as their movements. By law, each transfer, lien, and annotation, among others, must be recorded before the Public Registry to be binding to third parties. This generates a unique data center for the country where all transfers are recorded, and it’s possible to verify the chain of title and ownership of a property to determine who is the current owner. The Public Registry platform is public, digital, and user-friendly.

A common type of real estate fraud consists of illegally transferring of properties or using them as collateral for bank or private loans by impersonating the property owner.

We got you covered and here are some simple services you can retain to be ahead of criminals in the unlikely event this might happen to you:

Tittle monitoring:

Registry Alert Services. The Public Registry offers the Registry Alert Service, which consists of an email notification that a property owner receives from the Public Registry in case there are registry movements made over the property. Hence, every time a legal document is filed to the Public Registry the property owners can be notified.

This service allows to take immediate action in case an unauthorized movement is filed for registration. The Public Registry has 24 hours to notify the owner by e-mail. It is important to clarify that the purpose of the Registry Alert Service is to notify the owner, so the corresponding legal actions can be initiated immediately. However, it will not stop the document from being recorded as the Public Registry has no legal authority to categorize a registrar movement as a fraud. Nevertheless, what does happen is that if a movement is not recorded due to registration flaws and it is caught early, the owner can take administrative actions before the Public Registry to impede registration and therefore being in a much better position to overturn the fraud in the administrative or criminal venues.

Site Inspections:

Regular Site Inspections. Scheduling regular inspections through your legal team or your representatives is important to check for any signs of damage, unauthorized buildings, movement of boundaries and/or squatters. It is a good way to protect your investment since it can be used to detect illegal activities, illegal services or uses of the property, overlaps, illegal constructions, etc. You simply can’t leave your property unattended.

Other Recommendations:

Property Management. Hire a trustworthy local property management company or caretaker (considering labor law regulations) who can regularly inspect your property, handle maintenance tasks, and respond to any matter that arises. Keeping your property well-maintained, clean, fenced, with grass cut, deters scammers for targeting you as they will see an owner that takes action to protect its investment.

Remote Monitoring. Another way to protect your investment property is to connect a security system that allows remote monitoring by smartphone. Nowadays, security systems are fairly priced, and provides a quick way for you to check in on your property from anywhere. Also, this paired with signs saying, “You are being watched”, helps.

By implementing these measures, you can effectively monitor and protect your property in Costa Rica, even when you are not physically present. Buying property in Costa Rica is safe, and by implementing this recommendation, you can make it even safer!

For more information, please fill out the courtesy e-meeting form at the bottom. We will be glad to assist you!

María Luisa Campos Paulette
mcp@quatro.legal