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Buying Property in Chile:

 

How to Purchase Chilean Real Estate

Buying Real Estate in Chile is a fairly straightforward process, in relation to buying property in most other countries, even if you are not a citizen. With proper planning and a good bi-lingual attorney (unless you are fluent in Spanish), buying your dream home in South America may be easier and safer than you thought.

Wild Horses in Patagonia, Chile

Here is what you will need in order to make the purchase of a home or land in Chile:

  1. The formalized contract. (escritura pública otorgada ante Notario) and (Escritura Pública). These two are lumped together because the contract is usually part of the Escritura Pública.
  2. The Title Report for the property (Estudio de Títulos).
  3. A RUT (Rol Único Tributario) if you are a non-citizen non-resident, or a RUN (Rol Único Nacional) if you are a Chilean citizen or resident of Chile. Think of the RUN as a social security number (for you Americans out there) and the RUT as a number used to keep track of foreigners’ for tax purposes.

An Overview of the Process
As stated before, buying property in Chile is a fairly straightforward process in relation to purchasing property in most other countries. But that does not mean it’s a walk in the park. Any time you make a large investment like buying a home or land, there is a certain amount of bureaucracy to wade through. The following information will help you prepare for this process:

The escritura pública (usually prepared by an attorney in Chile because it must be written in a very specific format) must be transferred to an archive copy. This is usually done by the Notary staff after the copy is signed by both parties at the Notary's office.

At this point you only have a title. Before you actually own the property you must take a copy of the formalized contract and complete the ownership inscription at the Property Archive of the Registry (Inscripción de Dominio en el Registro de Propiedad del Conservador de Bienes Raíces). The ownership inscription is the legal obligation to complete the transfer of property to your name. Until completed, you have simply purchased the right to register as the legal owner.

Potential Pitfalls
That was an overview of the process of how to buy real estate in Chile. Most of the time you will find, especially with YOUR OWN qualified attorney, that the seller and the seller’s real estate agent will be cooperative and honest (relatively speaking) and the transaction will go smoothly. However, it is always best to know the potential pit falls:

  1. Make sure you have a clean title, free of any issues with eminent domain laws and other regulations. This is especially common in rural areas.
  2. Make sure the seller has a Property Tax Debt Certificate. The notary should not allow them to sign the escritura pública without this certificate.
  3. Don’t let the seller talk you into paying all of the expenses. In Chile, it is traditional for the buyer and seller to share expenses related to the contract and negotiations. There are two exceptions to this rule, which are the title report and the inscription at the Registry.
  4. Get the property checked as you would in most countries. If you plan to build your own home, check the consistency of the ground (is it solid rock, etc.) it to make sure there is an appropriate place to build. Get it checked for hazardous waste, and so on.
  5. It is common to sign a “buy-sell” agreement once you have agreed to purchase the realestate. This is a legally binding document, so make sure that you are committed to purchasing the property (pursuant to certain conditions, such as a clean title, etc.) before signing it.

The Costs Associated with Buying Property in Chile
As mentioned above, most of the costs (with the exception of the title report and inscription at the registry) are split between the buyer and seller. To give you an idea of what those costs might end up being, we have outlined them below:

These prices are estimates. As an example, it is estimated that you would pay (out of pocket) about 7,000 USD on a $100,000 USD property in Chile.

The Real Estate in Chile website content is not prepared by lawyers, and is not to be taken as professional advice. The US Embassy in Santiago has compiled a list of attorneys practicing in Santiago, Chile. You can view that PDF File here.