Due diligence is the process of researching the physical and legal status of the property you are about to buy before you buy it. During this process, you are confirming that the property is what the seller says it is; that it brings with it no legal complications that will make your life difficult; and that you can do with it what you have planned. Depending on the identity of the owner, the size of the property transaction, and your plans for the property, your lawyer could carry out due diligence or you could hire a due diligence professional. Likely your lawyer would handle the hiring of this person and receive all the data that person collects. Once again, be sure to ask for references. Along with the due diligence professional, you will likely want to hire a site surveyor as part of the due diligence process, which will be explained in more detail in Chapter 8.

Keep in mind that whether you hire extra professionals to carry out due diligence depends on what you want to do with the property. If you are buying a condominium in a development that has all its ducks in a row, your lawyer’s services will be all you need. If, however, you’re buying a building or a piece of land where you want to do some sort of construction – be it an addition on a house or a 200-unit development – it will be necessary to do a more detailed analysis to make sure you will be able to get the permits necessary for the project you have in mind. That could require everything from a site survey to a preliminary environmental impact study.

Though the buying process isn’t as neatly predictable as one might want it to be, here are the basic steps in more or less chronological order:

• Find a property
• Check it out by doing some preliminary due diligence
• Meet the owner and start the negotiation
• Offer and counter-offer
• Sign the sales agreement and put down a deposit or purchase an option
• Line up financing
• Complete the due diligence process
• Make any contract adjustments according to what you turned up
• Have notary draw up the document that will be the deed
• Sign the deed at closing, along with the seller
• Send the notary to the National Registry to register the deed
• Pay transfer taxes, notary fees, broker fees, and administrative fees
• Within two weeks of submitting the deed to the National Registry, the property should be registered under your name or corporation.

Some of these steps can take place simultaneously, especially on the financing end, which is something to keep in mind even before you find the property you want to buy, as lining up the actual payment can take some fancy logistics. When planning your purchase and signing sales agreement, make sure you know where the money is coming from and when it will arrive. If you’re paying cash, set up the wire transfer several working days in anticipation of the closing. If you’ll be financing the purchase through a Costa Rican bank, allow for four to five weeks of waiting and paperwork. Local financing for foreign buyers used to be non-existent, but it is becoming more common as Costa Rican banks are finally starting to wake up and smell the money. Find more details on that, see Chapter 10 on financing your purchase.

Another feature of the Costa Rican real estate scene that could derail the progression of this chapter is the existence of one-stop real estate shops: companies that get you everything you need to safely buy a property, either through partnerships or in-house professionals. That means lawyer, notary, escrow, title insurance, property management, due diligence experts, and on down the line, up to and including financing. The most visible companies that provide these property-buying packages areStewart Title and Chicago Title (in Costa Rica through its subsidiary, Latin America Title S.A.), although there are many other options that are more boutique. See the resource section for more details.