Legal aspects

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The properties we offer are duly registered at the Costa Rican Public Record Office and land transfers (sales) are granted through a public deed. To achieve this, the transaction is recorded by a Costa Rican Notary Public who inserts the title transfer in his Protocol (numbered ledger). A Notary Public is a licensed Attorney at Law who is endowed with "public trust" and has the right to validate and legalize all contracts and deeds. The purchase deed is presented by the Notary to be duly registered in the public records.

Our properties are registered in the Costa Rican Land Registry Office, where each individual lot has its own registry number. Ownership of each individual property is then transferred to an anonymous corporation, itself registered in the Costa Rican Registry of Corporations. All of the documents detailing ownership of the land and registry information of the corporation are available from each appropriate registry office.

By law, any individual, national or foreign, may legally own land in Costa-Rica. Nonetheless, for legal and economical reasons, it is recommended that the purchase of real estate be performed through a Costa-Rican anonymous corporation.
The advantages of having land registered under an anonymous corporation rather than in an individual's name are the following:

An anonymous corporation, as the name indicates, provides a measure of privacy to its owner(s), making it difficult for others to obtain information about who owns the shares of the Corporation, providing the discretion which many foreign investors desire.

You achieve a reduction of personal liabilities by having your assets registered under individual Costa-Rican corporations.

Individual landowners pay land transfer taxes every time the property is sold. Once a Costa-Rican corporation owns the land, there is no more land transfer tax to be paid since it is the corporation that changes hand in the case of resale.

There is no capital gain tax paid in Costa-Rica when you sell a corporation that owns a property, since the sale is a private transaction.

Inheritance taxes in Costa-Rica are high, but an anonymous corporation never dies. You can rest assured that your spouse or your children can enjoy the fruits of your labor without having to worry about such taxes, as long as you leave them the shares of the corporation in your will. They can then name themselves to the Board of Directors of the corporation and carry on the tradition.
Ownership of recordable assets, such as real estate and cars, has become the main purpose of most of the registered corporations in the country. This method of "indirect" possession is the most highly recommended means of managing recordable assets.

A Costa-Rican Attorney at Law incorporates the "blank" corporations that are used for the land transactions. The Attorney is initially registered as president and signing officer of the corporation until the corporation is turned over to you. The Board of Directors of the corporation is made up of a president, a secretary, a treasurer and a comptroller, all assigned to these positions to meet with the legal requirements, but only the signing officer and shareholders have legal powers over the corporation.

Once you are registered as president, signing officer and shareholder of the corporation (along with any other person that you may wish), the corporation becomes entirely yours, along with the property it owns.

The deed to the property allows you to request the exploitation right of any mineral and lumber resource found on the site from the Costa-Rican government. It also guarantees you sole rights of who has access to and over the property.

The shares of the corporation that owns the land can be endorsed in the name of an offshore IBC if you already own one. The land cannot be directly registered in the name of the offshore IBC because it is not a legally registered entity in Costa-Rica.

We offer an inexpensive yearly administrative package to take care of municipal (land tax) and national income tax declarations which every corporation that own land must present. Since the corporation does not produce goods or provide services, it is considered inactive and so pays no income taxes, although it must present a yearly income tax report indicating its inactive status. The cost of this service is $145.00 per year.