The Closing

This article is part of a series I have been writing to help educate retirees and other foreigners about buying a home or property in Costa Rica. In the last couple of weeks I have reviewed the buyer’s relationship with the broker and the seller, tips on due diligence and actually negotiating the deal. Below I will explain the procedure for doing a closing. The actual sales deed is a contract drawn up by one of the lawyers in Spanish. Which lawyer draws up the contract can be negotiated, but as with many things in the purchasing process, it often depends on which party is taking the larger perceived risk. For example, if the buyer is paying cash, the buyer’s lawyer draws up the contract. If the seller is financing, the seller’s lawyer draws it up. The buyer has the right to have the contract orally translated to English at the moment of the closing, but it’s a good idea to pay your lawyer to do a written translation as well. The closing usually takes place in the buyers’ lawyer’s office, but, as with almost everything else in the transaction, it depends on how the deal is structured: If a bank is putting up a large chunk of the money as financing, it will take place in the bank. Present at the closing will be your lawyer, you, the buyer, the seller, and a notary. Most likely the notary will also be one of the lawyers present at the closing, when you and the seller seal the deal and the notary registers the deed in his notary booklet. Later, the notary copies the deed into a separate document which he takes to the National Registry to register. After paying all the necessary stamps and fees for registration, the notary hands the document off to a registrar, who, if there are no problems with the document, may take a week or two to register the deed. Once the deed is registered, you should be able to go to the National Registry’s Web site, type in the finca number, and bring up the property registered under your name or the name of your corporation. Sometimes, however, it takes longer than a few weeks, usually because there was a problem with the document. In that case, the registrar gives the document back to the notary and it is the notary’s responsibility to revise it and resubmit it. People who see a long delay in the registration of their new property sometimes blame the bureaucracy at the National Registry. More often it’s the fault of a notary who isn’t doing his job.