Buying property in Costa Rica involves a prior process called Due Diligence. This involves making a study of the status of the property in the Land Registry, checking for the existence of encumbrances and easements, analyzing the plot map, verifying that municipal taxes are paid, and getting a document certifying that the property is suitable for development or construction, just to name a few. Al...

Costa Rica has always had a Justice system that can be linked to a maze of epic proportions where it was often easy to get lost or simply abandon the challenge of bringing a lawsuit to an end; many lawsuits take between five and ten years to be resolved. The reasons are multiple; a few are the lengthy and formalistic procedures, excess of appeals allowed, slow times to resolve by the Courts of App...

Costa Rica's most valuable asset is still its own land. A number of persons and corporations have found that land development, lot segregation and construction of buildings and houses are a way to make good profits. There is a wide range of investing options in this field: houses, apartments, lots, farms, raw land, commercial buildings and beach areas just to name a few. However, there are also a ...

For many years, the relations between consumer and merchants in Costa Rica were fundamentally by both the Code of Commerce and the Civil Code by applying generic commercial trade rules. It was that way until 1996 when Constitutional Status was granted to the protection of consumers' rights by introducing an amendment to article 46 of the Constitution, which basically says "All consumers have the r...

Costa Rica has experienced an ample growth during the last two decades. Much of that growth is uncontrolled and can create confusion among land owners. The country has laws to protect property rights, some of which are unknown and usually go unused here. Easement laws protect property owners, so they can control what is built around them. Certain easements rights can be acquired over time, like th...

Costa Rica has certainly become a multi-cultural country. Many foreigners decide to come as tourists, investors or to become permanent residents. Those living in CR usually try to achieve a good relationship with neighbors, employees, friends and everyone in general. However, some of them have found that the worst thing they could have done was being too good to other people. This might sound stra...

Costa Rica is a small country. However, the number of rules and regulations are certainly overwhelming. There are some legal topics that would not make up an article exclusively but still have a lot of importance. Knowing about their existence can be helpful to Expats residing in the country permanently or temporarily, so here is a mix of legal advice to helping in Costa Rica. Hopefully, it will b...

The current traffic law in Costa Rica has been in effect since October 26th, 2012. The purpose of the regulation was to fix some big problems created by a former law approved in 2010, which contained outrageous fines and several evidentiary contradictions, which created a big mess affecting both administrative and court procedures. This does not mean the current law in effect is much better, so th...

In 2012 a law #9024 named "Tax on Corporations" came into effect. It was an annual tax on all corporations registered at National Registry based on the Code of Commerce such as SA's and LLC's plus all of those branches of foreign corporations that obtained a corporate ID number for their Costa Rican divisions. Most foreigners living in Costa Rica were caught with one or more corporations used to e...

Powers of Attorney are a very important tool in Costa Rica and are used daily by individuals and corporations to take care of business, perform contracts and obtain various permits and authorizations from any public institution. However, Powers of Attorney can be also be a main cause of fraud. Some cases surrounding stealing by means of a Power of Attorney are hard to fight since judges tend to co...

During the last few days all news media have been reporting that a man named Manuel Alvarez, a person originally from Spain and long-term resident in California, has been reported as "missing" in Costa Rica by his family. Apparently, he came into the country after being alerted that some properties he owned here had been transferred illegally by forging his signature; this with help of some crooke...

Many expats in CR have some type of corporation registered in the country. There are numerous reasons why, but establishing a business, opening a bank account, or obtaining asset protection seem to be some of the most common ones. The main objective usually is to keep any personal liability separate from the corporation's patrimony and vice versa. It also allows the owner to include within the cor...

On most Real Estate transactions there are two initial items to be checked by any interested buyer: the existence of a Plot Map or "Plano Catastro" duly recorded at the National Cadastre Office as well as proceed getting a title certification from the Property Records Department or "Registro Inmobiliario". This information is of major importance as the plot map represents the physical description ...