Finally, if you are going to be hiring a housekeeper, a gardener, or any other kind of regular employ, you must know something about Costa Rican labor law. Labor law in Costa Rica is quite strict in protecting the rights of workers, something that might annoy employers but that is, on balance, a social good.

Even if you’re not planning to do business in Costa Rica, there’s a good chance you’ll end up the proud owner of several different corporations of the shell variety. Shell corporations have the advantage of being treated as a person under Costa Rican law, which makes them a good way to shield your assets from

Foreigners have the same rights to own property as Costa Ricans, and Costa Rica generally does a very thorough job of protecting the rights of property owners. But according to Costa Rican law, there are a handful of circumstances under which a property owner would partially or fully lose certain rights to the use of

In general: Technically, you don’t need a lawyer to buy property in Costa Rica. You do need a lawyer if you want to buy a property safely. Costa Rica is crawling with lawyers, so it’s not hard to find one, but it’s a little trickier to find a good one that meets your needs. An attorney

The most important difference between criminal and civil proceedings is that criminal proceedings are oral. That makes them move somewhat faster. However, they still take years. Once again, there are no jury trials, and a judge can place a suspect in “preventative detention” (prisión preventiva) basically indefinitely, if he or she chooses. Hopefully you won’t

Kafka would have loved Costa Rica’s civil legal proceedings, and truly one is never sure whether to laugh or cry, although toward the end of the sometimes 10- or 15-year process, the latter is more common. Two things can make a lawsuit for damages almost literally interminable. One, it is entirely a written process, except

The main theoretical difference between the Costa Rican and certain developed-world legal systems goes back to the 19th century and the ideas of a short French conqueror. The eponymous Napoleonic Code that he created is considered one of the first codifications of European law and is based on the principle that law should be clearly-written,