ADVICE AND INFORMATION ON
BUYING A PROPERTY IN COLOMBIA
Use a good quality real estate agency who can help
you to negotiate a good purchase. Depending on the
agency there may be big differences in the price and
condition of the purchase.
Get to know the property through a though physical
examination. If the property is in a larger building
speak to the administration to check that the person
who is selling the property is the owner, and to check
that the apartment is up to date with all communal
administration charges.
 Ask
for a recent “Certificado de Tradicion”
(a document that shows who is the legal owner and
the property is legally registered as well) (a maximum
of five days) in order to check that there are no
outstanding tax bills on the property.
To avoid risks use a lawyer who is an expert in notary
or property law in order that he or she can study
and check the “Certificado de Tradicion”
and other documents.
Check the account payments for all the public services:
water, electric, telephone, gas, cable, TV, etc.
Draw up a "promesa de venta” or contract
to sell that is written by or checked by a lawyer
who is an expert in contract law. The contract must
establish clearly the conditions of the sale, and
should set out the agreement in such a way that the
deposit paid should be as low as possible in order
to minimise risks. It should also state how the sale
will be completed once the final sale document of
“compraventa” is signed.
Expenses: The following expenses
arise from the award of the “escritura de compraventa”
or purchase/sale contract:
Note: It is not possible;
to calculate exact costs in advance because they are
calculated from a table with a range of prices from
the highest to lowest tariff. The cost of copies of
documents and number of pages must also be calculated.
The value between the safe price and; the annual property
tax; (“avaluo catastral”) is used to calculate
the cost; of the notarised documents and the cost of
registering the property in the new owners name.
As a guide however, outlined below
is a rough calculation of costs:
For a title deed with; annexes totalling 10 pages/ 3
copies of which plus the original equals 40 pages in
total.
For the first million of the sale price, plus pages,
production, and document review a basic charge of $160,000
pesos would be made.
Each additional million of the sale price would be charged
at $3,480 pesos.
For example a contract to buy a property for $100,000,000
would be calculated as follows:
Basic: $160,000
Plus: 3.480 X 99 = $344.520
Total $504,520
It is usual that the buyer and seller
each pay half of this sum (but this payment must be
agreed separately from the “promesa de venta”).
The Seller must also pay the “Retencion en la
fuente” tax which is 1% of the sale price (expect
when the property is his/her residence or it was acquired
before 1978 in which case It Is not paid).
The buyer must pay the cost of registration,
which is 2% of the sale price. In the example given
above where the cost was $100,000,000 this will be $2,000,000
It must be realized that each act which
appears on the title deeds must be paid independently,
in other words if a property for sale has an outstanding
mortgage that it sale + mortgage, the legal work and
costs will be that of the sale plus those of the mortgage.
MARIO KURE NERY
Commercial Adviser
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