By Ivo Henfling

Years ago, we would all get hundreds of flyers in the mail, offering all kinds of services and products. Some years later, we would get all these faxes in the middle of the night, because it is cheaper. Then the spam emails started, hundreds of them, every day. The latest waste of time and a huge bother for many is phone calls and text messages from banks, cable TV services and the phone company, offering their newest services.

I wish they were just offering, sorry, I should say PUSH their services. It drives me nuts. I sell products myself; I sell real estate in Costa Rica. But I send you only a blog once a week, and if you don’t want to receive it, you just unsubscribe from the service, you will never get it again. Financial institutions have other ideas though.

By Ivo Henfling

The new Costa Rica residency card is worrying some residents unnecessarily. Some online newspapers in English,  like AM Costa Rica, Inside Costa Rica and the Tico times reported this week about the new DIMEX residency cards but the information wasn’t clear what a DIMEX residency card is. For that reason, I have received several emails from my readership, worried about not being able to do any bank business without the new residency card. of course you will also need this residency card to buy Costa Rica real estate although you will be able to do that also with your passport.

By Ivo Henfling

Yes, why keep money in your Costa Rica bank account if they don't even pay you 1% interest on your money. Invest in Costa Rica real estate through your preferred realtor Ivo Henfling and I can get you 6% at a bare minimum. You don't have your money in a Costarican bank account but sitting in some retirement fund like an IRA, a 401K or a Canadian RRSP? Why would you want to do this to yourself?

Why am I saying this? Because I just listed this perfect investment property that I sold the actual owner about 5 years ago and is waiting for this smart investor. I personally supervised the remodeling of this property and can assure you its well done. Meanwhile, the owner got sick and let it go a bit, so it needs some care and some more love. Its some hunidity problem here and there and check on the gutters, nothing like a big deal but the potential is incredible. And when I say its not a big deal, its not.

By Ivo Henfling

The Costa Rica National Register anounced today, Friday the 10th of June that soon they will offer through an automatic alert, a digital guard service, that will let the owner of a property know through a text message or an email that there was some kind of movement in the title registry of this property.

Osvaldo Henderson, public prosecutor of the Fraude department of the Costarican Ministry of Justice, has told local newspaper La Nacion that their department receives up to 20 formal complaints of some kind of property fraud by a public notary.

In Costa Rica any attorney can become a public notary by doing an extra test that will allow them to work as a public notary. A public notary in Costa Rica can ofically give faith of a signture to belong to a certain person, which allows for crooked public notaries to file the sale of a property in Costa Rica, a mortgage on a Costarican property or any other lien that can change the title of a property.

By Ivo Henfling

You should definitely get residency in Costa Rica when you plan to live here permanently. The law indicates that if you are a permanent resident as a pensionado or rentista (two different types of retiree), you should be in Costa Rica 4 months out of the year as a minimum. Many of you are snowbirds and will live in Costa Rica only for a certain amount of time and others live here permanently. Many of you do the 72 hour trip out of the country every 3 months to renew their tourist visa, so yo become a perpetual tourist. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today.

Source: by Leticia Vindas for El Financiero
 

Coco Island is the first area declared as to be registered with surveys in the cadastre

Those who enter via the web to see the Costa Rica real estate record, will find updated information and high-resolution maps as of the second half of the year.

The regularization program cadastre and registration (known as "BID-Cadastre") is in the process of forming the national register of real property and its compatibility with the National Registry.

With this work we have 56 counties with its survey, available online through the National Land Information System (SNIT), said Alex Gonzalez, coordinator of Component I of the program that is being developed by the national register.
 

By Ivo Henfling

When you buy a Costa Rica real estate, you need to pay for it, right? Well, nowadays it is not easy to open a bank account in Costa Rica. So what do you do and how do you get your money here? Most who are looking to buy a house from a GoDutch realty agent, do not realize this might be an issue. That is one of the many reasons you should use a qualified real estate agent to purchase your Costa Rica property. You will need to either choose a real estate attorney for you closings who also has an escrow account in Costa Rica or you should use a Title company in Costa Rica for their trust and escrow services. Read on and ask your GoDutch Realtor to help you on this.

Legal Project proposes to regulate Costa Rica real estate agents

Source: César Brenes Quirós for La Nación on Monday 18th of October 2010.

The Informality in the practice of real estate brokerage and lack of clarity that exists in the real estate contracts could come to an end if Congress passes a bill that would regulate the sector.

The draft of the law regulating real estate contracts and real estate brokerage seeks to establish clear rules of contractual and property leasing, trust, security and title insurance.