Costa Rican coastal property comes in three flavors, and everything downstream depends on which one you’re dealing with.

• Titled property (fee simple). Registered in the Registro Nacional with a folio real number. This is what most foreign buyers should be buying. Full ownership, verifiable in the public registry.
• Rights of possession. Land held through documented occupation rather than registered title. It can be legitimate and it trades openly here, but it is a fundamentally different risk profile and the verification work is heavier. 
• Maritime zone concessions. The first 200 meters from the high tide line is not privately ownable, period. The first 50 meters is public. The next 150 meters can be used through municipal concessions, which are closer to a long lease than to ownership. Here’s the part that surprises people: foreigners with less than five years of residency can’t hold a concession directly, and a company holding one can’t be majority foreign-owned. If someone is selling you “beachfront ownership” inside that zone, one of you is confused. 

The practical takeaway: ask “titled, possession, or concession?” before you ask the price. On this coast, that one question filters out most of the trouble.

• An independent attorney. In Costa Rica, the transfer deed must be executed by a notario público, who is a specially licensed attorney with public authority, not a clerk with a stamp. Custom here: whoever pays the notary fee typically picks the notary, and buyers usually pay. Use that. Your attorney should answer to you alone. Never use the seller’s attorney, and be careful with an attorney the listing agent “always works with.” Cheap insurance against the most expensive category of mistake.
• A buyer’s agent. Costa Rica has no MLS that actually covers this coast, no licensing requirement to call yourself a real estate agent, and listing agents work for the seller. A buyer’s agent flips that: someone whose job is finding the problems, not smoothing them over. It typically costs you nothing, because commissions are paid from the seller’s side. More in [What a Buyer’s Agent Does → post #18]. Yes, this is what we do, so weigh our bias, then note that nothing else in this guide requires hiring us.

Once you’ve chosen a property, your attorney drafts or reviews a purchase-sale agreement (opción de compraventa). It sets the price, the timeline, the conditions, and, critically, a due diligence period, usually 30 to 60 days, during which you can walk away and recover your deposit if the checks turn up problems.

The deposit, commonly around 10%, should go into escrow. Not to the seller. Not to the agent. Not to anyone’s personal account, no matter how friendly the WhatsApp thread has gotten. Costa Rica has no dedicated escrow law; escrow providers register with SUGEF, the financial regulator, under general financial-services rules. Verify the registration yourself before wiring anything. Expect the escrow company to ask you for KYC paperwork, bank statements, and proof of where your money comes from. That’s not bureaucracy aimed at you; it’s anti-money-laundering compliance, and a provider who doesn’t ask is a provider to avoid.

Everything before this step is shopping. This step is the purchase.

During the due diligence period, your attorney and your agent verify, at minimum:

• The title. A registry study (estudio registral) from the Registro Nacional: who owns it, liens, mortgages, annotations, easements, pending litigation. This is the ten-minute check from the top of this post, done properly.
• The survey. The registered survey plan (plano catastrado) has to match what’s actually on the ground. Fence lines that disagree with the plano are common here and are a problem you want priced in or fixed before closing, not discovered after.
• Zoning and use. The municipality’s uso de suelo confirms what you’re allowed to do on the land. Buying a lot you can’t build on is a self-inflicted wound.
• Water. A water letter (carta de agua) proving legal water availability. On this coast, no water letter can mean no building permit. This kills more building plans than any other single document.
• Possession reality. Is anyone living on, working on, or crossing the land? Occupants can accrue rights over time, and squatter situations are a real, manageable, but non-ignorable risk in rural Costa Rica.
• The seller. If the property is held in a corporation, the corporation gets vetted too: standing, debts, tax status, who actually has signing authority.

If a seller or agent pressures you to shorten this period, that is information. Act on it.

Clean due diligence leads to closing day. The notario executes the transfer deed (escritura de traspaso), the escrow agent disburses the funds per the agreement, and the notario files the transfer with the Registro Nacional and pays the transfer tax.

You do not need to be in Costa Rica for this. Closings by power of attorney are routine for foreign buyers, which matters when you’re managing this from Denver or Düsseldorf.

• What closing costs. Budget roughly 3.5% to 5% of the purchase price all-in. The components: a transfer tax of 1.5% calculated on the higher of the purchase price or the registered fiscal value, registry stamps and fees of roughly 0.8%, notary fees typically 1% to 1.5%, plus escrow and any corporation setup. Who pays is negotiable; a 50/50 split between buyer and seller is the common custom, but it’s a term of your offer, not a law. 
• Should you buy in a corporation? Many foreign buyers hold property through a Costa Rican S.R.L. for liability, estate planning, and shared-ownership reasons. It adds annual costs and obligations, and since it interacts with residency rules (below), it’s a decision for your attorney and tax advisor, not a checkbox.

Ownership registers in days to weeks. Then the unglamorous part: register with the municipality for annual property tax (0.25% of registered value), check whether the luxury home tax applies, keep the corporation’s annual filings current if you used one, and update the utilities. If you build, that’s an entirely separate process with its own guide.

Three questions everyone asks

• How long does the whole thing take? From accepted offer to registered title, two to three months is typical, driven mostly by the due diligence period you negotiated. Faster is possible with a clean titled property and cash. Meaningfully faster should make you nervous.
•  Can I get financing? Mostly, no. Costa Rican banks rarely lend to non-residents, so this is a cash market. The workable routes are seller financing, which is common, or money raised against assets back home. 
• Does buying property get me residency? Buying alone, no. A qualifying real estate investment has supported Costa Rica’s investor residency category, but the famous $150,000 threshold came from a temporary law whose benefits window closed in July 2026, and the rules that follow it are exactly the kind of thing that changes between when we write this and when you read it. Get current requirements from an immigration attorney before you count on it.