By Ivo Henfling

You are selling your Costa Rica property and your buyer needs financing from a local bank. If your real estate agent is the only agent involved, it will make it for both buyer and seller much easier to deal with as the bank’s loan officers need a constant reminder to keep working on the document of this particular buyer. I have done many real estate closings involving bank mortgages and in many, the sellers freak out unnecessarily. This is why I am writing this blog, so you don’t have to freak out.

Most Costarican banks will tell your buyer to get an option to purchase – sale agreement for 3 months because they might need that amount of time to process the documents. I have seen some take that amount of time and others do their due diligence and close in 3 weeks. Ask your real estate agent to keep you up to date during the process, this helps to calm the nerves and the agent will need your help.

By Ivo Henfling

Before you sell your property in Costa Rica, you should plan for what can soon be an important issue for you. I mean, when you receive your check at closing, what will you do with it and how will you get the money to where you are moving to? I know, it sounds kind of weird but with today’s money laundering laws and before you get accused of being a drug dealer, you need to make sure you take the right steps.

First of all, by Costarican law, you don’t have to pay any capital gains in Costa Rica. You probably DO have to pay capital gains in your home country, so that is something to take into account. You don’t want to send a lot of money back home and have the tax department asking you where all that money came from.

By Ivo Henfling

Quite often I get emails from clients in the US and Canada who are looking to retire in another country and have read about retirement in Costa Rica. Some ask how many golf courses we have in the community and others how many homes there are in the community.

Some ask if you have any views from the homes in the community and what the community amenities are. For so many years Costa Rica has been in the news as one of the best retirement destinations in the world that some people have started to believe that Costa Rica is a community.

By Ivo Henfling

Well, guess what, they do things different in Costa Rica too. Whether you move to Costa Rica or retire to Costa Rica, you are used to do things a certain way. You do things different than people in other countries and other cultures do. We learn from our parents who learned from their parents and so on and so forth.

If your great grandparents came from Ireland or Italy or Poland, it makes a huge difference. Food, the language and the way you do things, it’s all different. Different doesn’t necessarily mean wrong. It has to do with culture, with growing up in an area where winters are harsh or summers are hotter than hell.