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.

This is how an online study of the National Register looks like

For this same reason, as many of you know, GoDutch Realty has offered its buyers the free service of Property Guard for two years if the property is bought through any of our GoDutch real estate specialists. For those interested in this service can also receive this service against payment. Every three weeks, Property Guard will do a manual check of your Costa Rica property (ies) on the National Register´s website and will email you a report saying your property still has a clean and clear title or your report will have a red flag and you will get a follow up call if there is a problem. If that is the case, you will be in time to ask your attorney to follow up on the issue. Over the past years, we have caught several cases of fraud, mainly of crooks with the help of a Costarican notary public, getting a mortgage on property not owned by them.

The Property Guard service is a manual service and is a lot of work to do it right. In my personal opinion, it will be a difficult one for the National Register to do this automaticcaly as promised by Justice minister Hernando Paris, especially with the capacity of organization within the Costarican government. But I certainly hope they will be succesful as for our GoDutch Realty - Property Guard office staff, this dilligence is definitely very slow because there are so many steps to be taken to do this correctly and secure.

Mr. Paris is not clear about when they will start this service or how much the start will be but we will keep you informed. Mr. RogelioFernandez, President of the Council of public Notaries does say that it is a shame that more or less 20 or 30 crooked public notaries give 9,000 honest public notaries a bad name. What else is new.....

So make sure you purchase your property through a GoDutch Realty agent and you will get your first 2 years of Property Guard fro free.

By Ivo Henfling, your realtor who also worries about the legal status of your property AFTER receiving a commission check. If you are looking to buy a property in Escazu or a property in Santa Ana, contact me now.