Frequently Asked Questions

We are in the town of Ojochal, a town noted for having great restaurants.  Ojochal has about 1800 year round residents and more in the winter months.  The town is more like a village than a town and many of the restaurants, hotels and attractions are not readily visible on first glance.  Although we don't have much of a downtown, we have nearly 35 restaurants and bars in town as well as 11 hotels.  Most are on side roads off of the main road.  We have a super market, a gourmet food store, wine bar, liquor, gas station, French bakery, gift shop, garden center, hardware center, etc.  The next town north of us is Uvita where there are a number of large commercial plazas selling everything from furniture to appliances, a farmers market on Saturday, two very modern supermarkets, banks, etc.  There is a duty free port in Golfito, about an hour away where we can buy things like flat screen televisions, sub zero fridges, high end stoves like Viking, Jenn Air, DCS and Wolf and any really high end appliance you might want like Bosch dishwashers or Fisher and Paykel Washers, Roper or Maytag Front loaders, etc..  The town of San Isidro, about a hour's drive from us has a Walmart, owned by Walmart but having a different name in Costa Rica.   We sometimes go to Dominical for nightlife since there is a better live music scene there and now with the new highway nearly complete, we are only about an hour's drive to Quepos.  We have Cortez to our south, the country seat of the area and Palmar Norte and Palmar Sur are about 30 minutes south of us.  We are less than two hours from Panama and many owners in our developments go there to get their 90 day tourist visa renewed.  

 Do you sell ocean front property? 

Costa Rica does not sell ocean front, the first 200 meters above the high water mark are public lands.  You can not own ocean front in Costa Rica although some hotels and condos have been built on what is referred to as concession property, but that property is leased, not owned.  Our developments are on the hillside above the ocean on land that can be owned.  We have ocean view but not ocean front.  Our lots are all less than 3 miles from the beach and many are much closer.  We are up the hill for the view.  Learn About Maritime Concession Here.

 Being near trhe beach tends to bring a few unfavorable characteristics.  Bugs are much more plentiful at the beach than they are up the hill.  Salt air is bad for most equipment, appliances and automobiles.  The Costanera highway runs right along the beach and since this is becoming a major truck route, along with the trucks comes truck noise from Jake Brakes and general truck sounds.  The beaches are almost all public except for a tiny part of the coastal area that falls within a marine national park    

Initially a "mother farm" known as a Finca, is purchased for development and subdivision.  Once the infrastructure is completed and the agencies responsible for the approval of these improvements have signed off on the work, the municipality will then allow segregation of the individual lots.
The properties are then registered with the Costa Rican Land Registry. Each lot is recorded at that time directly to the name of the owner purchaser.  Each lot has its own registry number. Ownership of each property is through registration to a corporation, which is registered in the Costa Rican Mercantile Registry. All titles of ownership to the land and registry information for the corporation are available from the appropriate registry office.  Each development is held as a separate corporation that is debt free.  As each parcel is sold off, it is literally purchased from that corporation.

Title insurance is available, as is gap insurance to cover the time the parcel is purchased until the segregation is complete and formal registration to the new owner is finished.  Most owners do not bother with this insurance since the process is just a matter of waiting for completion, usually no more than a year or two.  Many phases have already been signed off on and title is immediately available to the purchaser.

First let me say the developer owns much more land than will ever be developed.  The company owns land in the Osa Peninsula, land in maritime concession zones as well as a significant amount of primary forest.  This land will be preserved and protected.  In each phase of development a potion of the property is left as green space leaving corridors for animals to travel through.  Rivers passing through the property are now protected by means of a buffer space on both sides of the river, though in some earlier phases this was not required.   

The developer we represent does all work complete with great respect for the environment, using sustainable wood products. All of their developments are on prior pasture land and we never clear primary forest. They maintain natural buffer zones and protected areas within the developments, in excess of what is required by law. They also give a percentage of all sales toward environmental protection.

All of the properties within our developments are fully serviced by public roads, with water and electric hook-ups at the property lines of each lot.  In Costa Rican developments, Roads must meet municipal standards which currently require 7 meters width.  Cement culverts and catch basins are also required.  Electrical lines are installed by the developer based on the engineering requirements of ICE, the public utility for electric in Costa Rica.  ICE also provides telephone and DSL for Internet.  We install the water system within each phase.  Water must meet municipal standards as well and are monitored by AYA, the public utility for water.  Our water is from artesian springs and of very high quality. 

Some phases are sold "pre-developed" and the completion of the installation of the infrastructure is still in process.  The public utilities must sign off on installation before the municipality will grant the final urbanization plan and allow individual segregation of lots.  This takes time and patience is required.  When you purchase land that is not yet fully titled, you still have complete ownership and occupancy rights to that parcel.  Some phases have taken longer than others to get signed off on, which can be frustrating to both the owner and developer.  Once final segregation is approved, individual titles are issued to the segregated parcels and registered in the Folio Real system in San Jose, the online property registry.