Know what you’re buying before you buy it.Property due diligence for Costa Rica

That's fine — send whatever you have. We analyse what's provided and flag anything missing as part of the report. Most Survey Only orders come with just the plano catastrado, and that's enough to run a full survey analysis.

All reports are written in English, even when the source documents are in Spanish. We read and extract the Spanish-language documents and present the findings in plain English.

You'll get an email within 24 hours listing the exact documents to send for your package — just reply with what you have. Once we've received everything required, your report is emailed to you within 48 hours. If you'd rather ask a few questions before paying, use the enquiry form instead and we'll reply within 24 hours to help you pick the right package.

For closing, yes — you'll need a local attorney to handle the actual transfer, escrow, and registration. What Clara Deeds answers is the question that usually comes first: is this property even worth pursuing? Our report flags bad title, zoning problems, and unpaid debts before you pay a retainer, so you either walk into a lawyer's office already knowing what to ask about, or know to walk away first. It's not legal advice and we're not a law firm — think of it as the fast, affordable check most buyers want before committing to one.

The most common ones: sellers offering land they don't actually own or haven't fully registered, boundaries that don't match the survey on file, properties inside maritime or protected zones that can't legally be built on, and unpaid taxes or debts that quietly transfer to the new owner at closing. Nearly all of these show up clearly once the registered documents are checked against what you're actually being told — which is exactly what a due diligence report catches before you sign anything.

You check the property's entry at the national registry — Costa Rica's Folio Real, or Panama's Registro Público, where properties are identified by a finca number instead of a folio — to confirm who is actually listed as the owner, whether the boundaries match the seller's claims, and whether there are any liens or annotations against it. Doing this yourself means requesting and reading registry documents in Spanish and knowing what to look for; a Clara Deeds report does this for you and returns the findings in plain English.

At minimum: confirm the registered survey (Plano Catastrado) matches what you're being shown, confirm the title (Folio Real) is clean and matches the seller's name, confirm the zoning (Uso de Suelo) allows what you intend to build or do, review the sale contract for unusual terms, check for outstanding debts (Paz y Salvo), and rule out environmental or maritime restrictions. That's the same six-point checklist every Clara Deeds report runs through — see what we check for the details on each.

It's Costa Rica's official land title registry entry — the government record of who legally owns a property, plus any liens, mortgages, or annotations against it. Searching it (what's often called a title search) is the single most important check before buying, since it tells you whether the person selling you the property actually has the legal right to.

It's the officially registered survey map of a property — the document that defines its legal boundaries, exact area, and registration status with the national cadastre. If the plano catastrado doesn't match what you're actually being shown on the ground, that's one of the clearest signs something is wrong with the sale.

Currently Costa Rica. Panama is coming soon — its registry system has enough structural differences (Registro Público, titled vs. rights-of-possession land) that we want to get it right before offering it. Register your interest on the Panama page and we'll email you when it's available.

PDF, JPG, and PNG. If your documents are in another format, convert them to PDF before sending.

Yes — you can get a full refund any time before you've sent us every document required for your package. Once we have everything we need and analysis begins, we can't offer a refund, since the work is bespoke and already underway. See our Refund Policy for full details.