[BUYING & SELLING REAL ESTATE IN COLOMBIA] 84
Colombian agrarian legislation.
The deed process takes approximately 5 business days, and the notary fees are regulated by decree for the entire national territory. Afterwards, the public deed must be registered at the Registration Office to which the property is linked. 5. Registration Aspects: Public deeds in Colombia must be registered to considering transferred the property, because without registration there is no transfer of ownership rights. The registration offices are divided into registry circles that are distributed according to the location of the real estate properties. The purpose of the registration is to give knowledge to everyone about the transactions and legal acts that have been done or that may affect the property. The registration process takes about 15 business days and its fees to register are set by the authorities at the national level, however, registration taxes must be paid as well, and they are set by each municipality government, so they may vary among municipalities. To register a deed, the first copy of the document issued by the Public Notary must be taken to the Registration Office of the circle to which the property belongs with the proof of payment of the applicable registration fees and registration taxes. Once the Registration Office receives the documents, it proceeds with the registration after checking that everything was made accomplishing the applicable laws, if not, the Registration Office can make return notes indicating the motifs of such return and/or those aspects that must be corrected before presenting them again for registration.
4. Notarial Aspects: As it was mentioned before, the transfer of real estate in Colombia must be done with the formality of a public deed held before a Public Notary. Similarly, when fiduciary contracts involving transfer of real estate are constituted, the formality of a public deed must be complied with, even though the transfer of fiduciary rights over them can be made by means of a private document. The public deed content is public which means that anyone can access the information of a real estate transaction. The process to prepare a public deed begins when the interested party approaching any Public Notary office in the country, since there is freedom of choice except when dealing with transactions in which the state participates as a party, because there it would apply a distribution system to select among notaries. Once the request is made, the officials of the pubic notary will inquire which legal transaction is going to be held and request the documents required for each specific deal; in the case of the sale and purchase agreements, the required documents are: (i) No liens’ certificate ( certificado de tradición y libertad ) of the properties involved in the transaction; (ii) Documents of existence and legal representation of the parties; (iii) Proof of payment of property taxes of the last five years; (iv) No debts certificate issued by the applicable tax authorities in relation to the properties; and, (v) No debts certificate issued by the administration when the properties are subject to the condominium regime.
ILN Real Estate Group – Buying and Selling Real Estate Series
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