Field notes
Plain-spoken guides to Costa Rican property records: titles, liens, taxes, zoning, and the registries behind them. Written by the team that reads them every day.
If a Costa Rican listing says beachfront, the land is almost certainly State property in the maritime zone or "Zona Marítimo Terrestre" (ZMT). What a concession is, who may hold one and how.
A practical guide to transfer taxes, Registry charges, notarial fees, escrow, due diligence and broker commissions, including what changes when the seller finances the purchase.
How to look up a Costa Rican property on the Registro Nacional's own site, step by step, how to read the report it returns, and what the report proves and what the Registry never checks.
The rate is 0.25%, charged on the value your municipality has on record. Recording a sale or a mortgage raises that value, and on the coast a concession costs many times more.
In Costa Rica the road in front of a lot sets its minimum size, what can be subdivided from it, and whether anyone owes it maintenance. How the rules differ across the four kinds of access.
Costa Rica publishes official flood and landslide maps, free to anyone. They are also drawn at a scale coarser than a building lot, and the fine print says so.
Without a water availability letter, a Costa Rican municipality will not issue a construction permit. What the document is, who issues it for your lot, and how to check the one a seller hands you.
Mortgages, embargoes, easements, and recorded lawsuits follow the property, not the seller. How to read Costa Rica's gravámenes y anotaciones before you commit.
Every registered property in Costa Rica has one number that leads to its full legal history. How the folio real is built, how to read it, and where to find yours.