We met Attorney Rosario Araya thru a real estate agent that we were working with in Dominical. Our plan was to buy a residence in Costa Rica and move there. While we were looking at houses from Palmar Sur north to Lake Arenal and west to the Pacific on the Nicoya Peninsula, she was preparing our Costa Rican corporation so that we could transfer any residence into it. By mid December we had our corporation. We did not find anything we really wanted until April when we came to an agreement to buy a house just south of Jaco thru unfortunately a different real estate agent. We were excited to get things rolling. Rosario drew up the SPA (agreement to purchase) and started her end of the “due diligence” period (she can explain what that means). We likewise started our due diligence in getting the requisite inspections done while Rosario was gathering the necessary information and documentation. (Just a note: in Costa Rica, house buying can be more complicated because you have to verify things like who provides the water, electricity, etc)
Subsequently, the inspection came back negative and it was something that we didn’t feel we could overcome since we could not initially spend the time to guarantee the repairs would be done in a timely and quality manner. We decided not to proceed with the sale. This is the point at which you hope you have a good attorney. We notified Rosario. Rosario notified the sellers and the real estate agent. We notified the escrow agent about the procedure to get our down payment reimbursed. Rosario did the same. We were eventually sent a form to sign and return. We were told the sellers needed to sign and send also. The sellers balked. They did not think we were operating in good faith and didn’t have a valid reason for not proceeding with the sale. They thought they should be reimbursed for taking the time to sell us a house. STALEMATE! Rosario wrote an outstanding notice to the sellers and also the escrow agent stating that the buyers (us) had complied with the terms of the SPA which allows us to terminate the agreement if during the period of due diligence that any negative results are found that in our opinion we did not want to go forward. She also clearly stated that it was only the opinion of the buyers and that the sellers opinion at this point was irrelevant by the language of the SPA.
We had an outstanding attorney and we have been reimbursed the full amount of our down payment less wiring costs by the escrow agent.
We recommend the use of your own attorney if you wish to purchase or sell a house in Costa Rica. The process can be daunting enough but when you deal in another language the nuances of the language require a local expert. If we relied only on the sellers attorney to close the house above, we would not have had the results we did. Get your own attorney. They represent you. What is the best recommendation and testimonial we can make for Rosario? Simply this, she is the ultimate professional. She listens, protects and acts in the best interest of her clients. Most of all, we will use her again and again.