Buying a house in a foreign country usually raises many questions, one of them has to do with your rights as a buyer and what warranty you get with your investment, after all, the last thing you need is to have an experience which should be exciting turn into a nightmare.

Certainly, to avoid any problems with the purchase first you have to take some precautions, buyers tend to be impulsive and sometimes are so excited with a new project that they tend to skip some basic steps, just like with any other purchase, it is important that you take your time to consider every aspect of the house you are buying, ask questions and request information, bring an architect or a civil engineer that you trust to do an inspection of the house and check the blueprints, request details regarding the electric system, the plumbing, the sewage system, the materials used, etc. All this information will help you make an educated decision and avoid unnecessary headaches going forward.

That being said, there are laws in Costa Rica that protect the buyer and that entitle him/her to make claims and even file a lawsuit against the seller.

For instance, according to the Costa Rican Commercial Code, the seller must give the house ¨in suitable conditions for the activity it was normally destined¨, in other words, the house must be in good conditions, without defects or flaws that affect its normal use. In the case of a new house, the responsibility also falls on the engineer or architect in charge of a project, as well as the developer, for any defect in the construction including the quality of the materials used or construction flaws. The law establishes a warranty of 5 years (for brand-new houses) from the moment the house is sold and it usually applies to structural damages or evident flaws of the construction or design. Other elements of the house may also have warranties but valid for different terms depending on the nature of the same.

When the purchase is being done through a residential project, for example a new condominium, the buyer is viewed as a consumer, and therefore Law 7472 (Promotion of the Competition and Effective Defense of the Consumer) is applicable, and the developer must provide warranty over the quality, suitability and compliance of the technical standards of the property being sold. Consumers can present their complaints to the National Consumers´ Commission, within 30 days of discovering the problem or imperfection.

The Costa Rica Construction Chamber offers a ¨Guide of minimum warranties recommended for houses¨ (you can find it online under Guía de Garantías Mínimas Recomendadas para Vivienda- Cámara Costarricense de Vivienda), which provides a detailed list of different aspects that must be considered at the moment of the transaction, this is ideal for both sellers and buyers that want to address any possible problems before finalizing the purchase.

It is also very important to ask the developer of a project about the warranties offered, professional and experienced developers usually will give you the information in writing where you´ll find the terms under which each warranty applies, the proper procedure and time frames to present a claim and their policies regarding when a problem will be repaired and when they will replace a particular item.

Buy your home from a reliable developer and avoid any possible hassles.