Finally, there’s the topic of partners. Business partnerships in Costa Rica break down into three basic forms: Foreigner-foreigner, foreigner-local, and buyer-seller. The first should be rather self-explanatory if you’re used to doing business. The second is risky but can have some great benefits. By partnering with a local, you get local knowledge and local connections. Your local partner can take charge of land price negotiations and maybe get a better deal, and he or she will have a built-in network of consultants and contractors that do good work. With a local partner, you don’t need to speak Spanish and you don’t need to learn the dark arts of Costa Rican bureaucracy. There is, however, a flip side. If you’re worried about getting cheated in Costa Rica, taking a local partner could turn out to be something akin to entering a lion’s den and partnering with a lioness. Again, make sure your partner has good references and does good-quality work, and hire your own independent attorney to go over the contracts and the structure of the corporation.

Finally, there’s the buyer-seller partnership. The smart Costa Rican landowners know that a one-time land sale brings one-time cash, and not very much at that, if they’re selling raw cattle pasture or something similar. They may instead want to partner with a developer to develop the land and split the (larger) profits. That could mean taking less money in exchange for a stake in the project, or simply putting up the land as the farmer’s part of the deal. Either way, the advantage to you is that you don’t need as much money up front to make the development happen. A few consultancy firms like Burlage S.A. specialize in hooking up developers with Tico land owners for development deals. See the resources section for more details.