Foreigners developing on the coast are handicapped because there are little or no guidelines for development. Guidelines for developers come from regulatory or zoning plans. These plans are — in theory — designed to align the land and human activities to the best use of resources without depleting those resources.

In the past, foreigners interested in developing have skirted the rules, especially in the maritime zone. In many cases, they have had to do so because no coherent rules were in place. Today, the Costa Rican government is finally trying to regulate growth and building, especially on the coasts with integral territorial zoning plans. Each one will encompass large areas. These integral plans are coming for areas all over the country.

One very important integral coastal plan on the drawing board right now and of special interest to the government is for the Hermosa, El Coco and Bahía Azul area of Guanacaste. The government wants this plan to showcase its interest in sustainable development and promote investment. This plan includes an area of 200.5 hectares or 495.5 acres.

In Costa Rica a zoning plan for an area is referred to as a plan regulador. In the past, municipalities have had little or no money to create zoning plans. In urban areas this fact means there has been building with no planning. Development with no planning means no organization, and many subdivisions throughout the Central Valley and on the coast are suffering today because of this lack of planning and organization.

In the maritime zone, within the 150-meter restricted area, something else has happened over the years. Private interests that wanted to develop property paid for zoning plans to suit their needs. Many municipalities throughout Costa Rica accepted the privately funded plans to raise their tax bases. In some cases, municipal officials personally enriched themselves working with private companies on these zoning plans. Others just built without permission period.

To get a concession from the country in the restricted area of the maritime zone a regulatory plan must be in place. Concessions are the vehicle people and companies use to make money in the restricted area. For example, to build a condominium or a resort in this area, the country must license the use — through a concession — to the individual or company. Only Costa Rican citizens are allowed to hold a concession. However, this is another one of the rules everyone skirts by using Costa Ricans as puppets when applying for a concession.

The Procuraduría, the attorney general’s office of the country, has tried hard to curb these practices, but officials have not had much success to date. Many people in Costa Rica bend the rules and seemingly appear to get away with doing so.

The reason the Costa Rican government wants the Hermosa, El Coco and Bahía Azul coastal zoning plan in place so badly is because the country wants to prove to the world it knows how to plan sustainable development. The government wants to provide developers a set of rules they can use in planning and get rid of the surprises that currently plague those trying to do something in Costa Rica. This plan is indeed different for the following reasons:

1. The project is being paid for by the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo — the tourism institute — not private companies or local municipalities. The plan is designed to promote local as well as
international tourism as well as investment. 2. It is designed to organize and plan future development.

3. Protecting the environment and natural resources is a core objective of the plan.

4. Increasing the security of concessions for those people who have obtained them is of key importance to promote foreign investment.

5. The taxes generated in sectors where there are integral plans will help the municipalities improve and maintain important infrastructure. This is a serious problem for coastal projects today.

6. Access to public zones will be enhanced for Costa Ricans.

There is also another very important element to the new zoning plans on the coast, one everyone with property in the maritime zone should know. Any structures within the 50-meter zone will be inventoried and probably be torn down. Some structures have already been demolished. This is the public area from the mean high tide line to a point 50 meters inland. Structures within the 150 meters restricted zone also will be inventoried and analyzed. The analysis will be to determine whether or not the structures are legal. Structures that were built without permission and permits also will be torn down.

Many people in Costa Rica adhere to the unwritten guideline that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission. In the cases where people used this method of building in the restricted zone, it may very well be the cause for the demolition of whatever they built.

Those who have obeyed the rules and followed the correct procedures will have their properties on the coast and in the maritime zone enhanced by the new coastal zoning plans. Hopefully, one of the first ones for Hermosa, El Coco and Bahía Azul area will be everything it is cracked up to be, a serious plan for sustainable development and increased foreign investment.

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Beach house is on its way down!

If they have property in the maritime zone, expats can look forward to a hard time this year from municipalities up and down the coasts. If that is not enough stress for 2008, the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía will be in line to add more tension. Some expats may be losing their comfy beach houses if they are located in the wrong places.

Municipalities over the past couple of years have awakened. They are now in a fret and furor trying to make up for lost ground. The first attack is tearing down structures within the 50 meters zone. This has gone on now for a couple of years. A visit to Guanacaste over Christmas shows the momentum increasing. The first 50 meters on the coast is the public zone. All the people of Costa Rica have rights to this land, but for years some have built or encroached on this zone. The Costa Rican government has complete sovereignty to protect the area for the people. Municipalities do the policing.

In some cases, targets include certain high profile Costa Rican landmarks owned by Costa Ricans, like the Mar y Sombra restaurant in Quepos. In other areas of the country, expats are first on the destruction list.

One hotel owner in Paquera received notice in August to tear down a 50-year-old house. He loved this beach house and that is where he stayed when visiting the country, not in his hotel. His argument that the house existed way before the maritime law became effective fell on deaf ears.

The owner received official papers stating if he did not tear down the house, he and his legal representative would face criminal court action.

What made him mad is not that he had to tear down the structure. He said he respects the country’s laws and wants to contribute to its development. He is mad because his Tico neighbors with houses on the adjacent beach did not get the same legal notice.

More maddening is that as he began tearing down his beloved house, the inspectors came back and added other structures to the list. Now it looks like the municipality is going to pour salt into his wounds by increasing his taxes this year.

This poor expat has his personal troubles with his municipality. However, he is lucky, others have much bigger problems.

Most concessions in the maritime zone need to be renewed every 20 years. This means updating all the paperwork and resubmitting it for approval. Those doing so are finding the rules of the game different. The rule of thumb in Costa Rica is when things work well, change them to return to havoc.

It is the Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía’s job to determine what areas from 50 meters to 200 meters above mean high tide can and cannot be transformed into a concession in the maritime zone. This department of the government did not do its job for many years in protecting environmentally sensitive spots. The pendulum has swung from doing little to overkill.

In one concession in Guanacaste up for renewal, the Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía says there is not one concession but four and that many condominiums there are built on land that is protected because of environmental concerns. The concession holder is in a quandary. He does not know what to do. Costa Rica law states a Costa Rican can only own one concession at a time. Will the concession holder lose the other concessions? Will he need to tear down existing structures to adhere to the law?

Now the biggest scare of all for 2008. Costa Rica wants its cut on maritime property over and above the measly pittance it receives in taxes The country has figured out concessions are sold for mega
millions of dollars to international trend setters and the country gets zip on the sales. The legislature is discussing this fact, trying to come up with ideas to get a piece of the mega bucks.

In 2008, municipalities will tear down more and more structures close to the beach, including homes and businesses. The Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía will rigorously apply rules with a vengeance to make up for lost time when officials were not doing their job, making new concession applications and renewals wearisome. These events promise a frustrating year for expats and developers living or investing in the maritime zone.

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In more and more cases, buying property in Costa Rica can hold an innocent property buyer hostage for years, bankrupt them and even kill them with stress and strain.

Only a few years ago, it was rare to read about property fraud in the local press. Nowadays, it is probably one of the most important topics of the news. Sometimes even a legally perfect property can carry hidden problems. Costa Ricans and savvy expats can use these complications to sour even the best and honest real estate transaction.

Some years back an American moved his family to Costa Rica. They thought living here would be full of excitement and a new and fruitful life. They got more than they bargained for. Buying a couple of parcels of land on the Pacific coast, they divided the property into a couple of other lots as many expats do and sold off one of the lots to another expat. The buyer of the segregated lot requested financing, and the seller agreed, securing the deal with a first mortgage.

Much to the surprise of the American, the Registro Nacional put administrative alerts on his properties along with those of everyone who bought lots in the area. Someone with contacts complained to a representative of the legislature that some of the lots sold were in the maritime zone.

The Registro Nacional will not put an alert on an obviously stolen property, but in this case, they added the warning without question. In Costa Rica, it is who you know not what you know that counts and, obviously, the person who sent in the complaint knew the right people. They may have had ulterior motives too.

The buyer of the American’s lot used the Registro Nacional’s annotation as an excuse not to pay the mortgage even though the parcel is not even close to the zona marítimo terrestre. The mortgage holder went to court to collect the mortgage, as any normal person would do in this situation.

This fact miffed the debtor who filed a criminal case against the seller and holder of the mortgage alleging he knew all along of the national registry’s action.

It is sure interesting that the debtor did not file anything with any authority before the court went forward with collection proceedings. In Costa Rica, the rule of thumb is to fight as dirty as possible in court and to use this strategy whenever it is convenient. This scheme bogs down the court system and wears down opponents. Almost every lawyer who litigates states the judicial system is in complete disarray and is disintegrating.

The Registro didn’t help either. Last year the land registration department of the Registro Nacional requested the Catrastro Nacional –— the property map or plat section — to go to the Pacific coast and clear up the dilemma regarding the properties to clarify once and for all whether they werein the maritime zone or not so the landowners could get on with their lives.

One year later the administrative file shows that the Catrastro Nacional has done nothing. Two weeks ago, the Registro responded to a letter of complaint sent to it by the property owner held hostage by these events. The Registro officials said they cannot dictate to the catrastro office and that everyone will just have to wait until that office gets around to the job.

Amazing but true. A property that looked clean as a whistle harbored unforeseen difficulties that are now allowing others to pounce on an honest property deal, using the lethargic Registro Nacional and broken down court system to do so.

There is probably nothing this American could have done to protect himself and his family from these events. He did his homework and paid others to do due diligence on the properties before he bought them. Everything checked out to the letter.

Neither title insurance nor the new fangled company advertising everywhere that they protect a property would have helped this expat. Title insurance is not insurance for these kinds of cases, and the property protection company  reports property movements after the fact.

The American moved back to the United States with his family. He visits less and less often. However, he is still hostage to the country and will be for some time to come.

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Legal circles are buzzing with the expectation that the Sala IV will soon open up the Zona Maritima Terrestre — the maritime zone — to foreigners. They may soon be able to hold and develop public land next to the beach without making under-the-table deals.

The first 200 meters, 656 feet, of coastal land inland from high tide is Costa Rica’s maritime zone. The first 50 meters of the 200 meters, 164 feet, is un-exploitable beach land. The rest, 150 meters, 492 feet, is public land. This area can be developed by private parties through a concession with the state.

Much of the nation’s tourism infrastructure at the beaches can be found at least partly on concession land.

Now only Costa Ricans or a corporation owned by mostly Costa Ricans can develop a concession in the public area of the maritime zone. Law 6043 Articles 47, 31, and its bylaws Article 25 mandates this fact.

Stefano Santini, a 32-year-old Italian businessman, is the crusader trying to change the law that would allow foreigners to hold concessions and develop them. The constitutional court rejected his initial filing because it was not prepared correctly. He tried again and refiled in 2006, and it was accepted.

He based his arguments on a similar case presented to the Sala IV by Beeper S.A., C.V. in 1998. Beeper S.A. is a pager company which opposed the fact communication companies were restricted to Costa Rican ownership. Beeper, S.A. won. The case took three years to resolve.

Taca filed a similar complaint against the civil aviation laws that also prohibited foreign ownership on March 29. The Sala IV resolved the case in record time. The constitutional court with vote 11156-2007 of Aug. 1 — just last month — found such a restriction unconstitutional.

The legal beagles of Costa Rica believe this reflects a trend for the high court and that Stefano will win his case.

In 2005, a Spanish news service estimated that 81 percent of the concessions in Costa Rica were in the hands of foreigners and only 19 percent in the hands of Costa Ricans. Many of these concessions were granted in direct violation of the law. In others, the foreigners just skirted the rules by putting a puppet Tico as owner on paper to comply with the law.

These facts show that impractical rules make people break the law. When using a puppet to circumvent the rules, the puppet may just come alive and fire the puppeteers. There is a case where this happened and many others that go unreported. Foreigners applied for a concession and gave the majority ownership and power of attorney to a Tico lawyer to comply with the law. The lawyer just took over one day and left the investors hanging with their mouths open. After years in court, the lawyer won. The court stated it does not tolerate or protect abuses of the law.

Many xenophobic legislators are outraged. They know the writing is on the wall. Former legislator Nidia González Morera of the Partido Acción Ciudadana wanted to put through a legislative decree to require the foreigners to have 10 years of permanent residency and personal presence in Costa Rica before they would qualify. Permanent residency is a legal status of residency. Personal presence is time on Costa Rican soil. The Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería manages this information with entrance and exit data.

The attorney general’s office and the environmental ministry have had their disputes over this valuable area of Costa Rica for the last few years. Concessions were at a standstill until just a few months ago.

Santini wants the opportunity to file for a concession as a foreigner so he does not have to break or skirt the law. This makes sense. Even though decisions from the Sala IV do not always make sense, they will probably make changes to the maritime law, which will have a significant impact on the country and its future.

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Beach concessions to face enforcement

The environmental ministry is about to specify where construction can go within the borders of beach concessions.

Even though an individual or a firm may already have an approved concession, the ministry is ready to rule out construction in forest land, land with steep slopes and wetlands.

And the ministry may initiate destruction of structures that already have been built on land that is now being declared off limits. In some concession areas 60 to 70 percent of the land is being safeguarded by the environmental ministry.

What is involved is a reevaluation of the rules that govern the maritime zone, the 250 meters above mean high tide. Anything built illegally — from small structures to hotels — can be in the way of the law.

Legal battles can postpone the inevitable but not delay fate forever. The Mar y Sombra restaurant bit the dust in August after a lengthy, futile legal battle due to its location in the maritime zone, although that was a municipal case.

The first maps are out and it appears the ministry already knows what the decision will be in a case that is sitting on a magistrate’s desk at the Sala IV constitutional court awaiting signatures.

The case, number 04-005607-0007CO, is the famous action that stopped concession granting in the maritime zone in 2004 because of outcries against Executive Decree 31750-MINAE-TUR.

The decree would have allowed the construction of buildings up to 14 meters high and permitted the logging of forest areas to make way for “ecotourism” projects.

The decree would have legalized the range of impacts that tourism projects would have had on forests: allowing the cutting of trees up to 15 percent of the concession area in primary forests, and 25 percent in secondary forests.

The amazing part of all this is many tourism developments are already built in restricted areas of the maritime zone with permissions given to them from local municipalities and approvals from the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo. But they lack approval from the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía, which until now has not taken an active role.

In some cases where building took place in restricted areas of forest zones, the approvals directly conflict with the forestry law and are illegal. A case in fact, is Proyecto Playa Dulce Vida where the company cut down the forest to build its development. The freezing of the permissions arrived too late to stop the destruction.

Proyecto Playa Dulce Vida on the central Pacific coast is just one example of the many areas restructured by developers before the environmental ministry could get its act together to stop them.

Quite by accident, the executive decree spotlighted the already existing activities, and, by doing so, triggered anger at the ministry which lead to the constitutional case.

The hoopla is not about the forest. It is about power. The environmental ministry felt trumped by the executive decree. The decree usurped Forest Law 7575 where the environmental ministry is the only institution in the country to determine what is forest and what is not, ministry workers decided.

Law 7575 permits zero development in restricted forest areas. The criteria determining these zones include tree density and size along with the slope of the land.

The labor union syndicate of the ministry filed the constitution case with the Sala IV. They were protecting their jobs and recognized the warning signs that the ministry was about to lose power. The syndicate surely will win the case, and the executive decree will be voided, thus reinstating the ministry’s power as king over these lands.

Environmental ministry workers must know this because they are out in force inventorying the entire country’s maritime zone to determine what are concessionable areas within these restricted territories. In a concession, a private company leases public land for private use including ventures for profit. Many major hotels and other developments are constructed on concession land.

When the smoke clears and the power struggle is over with executive decree of 2004 rescinded, what is going to happen to developers who built in restricted areas of the maritime zone?

Recent events reflect that the country will stop at nothing to protect the maritime zone because the area is part of the public trust and the legislature, courts, and ministries must defend it at all costs for the people of Costa Rica.

Structures existing for years are falling to the wrecking balls of today. A victory for the ministry in the Sala IV case is sure to trigger other, similar demolitions.

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Slope of land can kill projects

There are some surprises in motion in the maritime zone. Few people are aware of them today. Foreign ownership restrictions are being challenged. And the environmental ministry appears to be preventing development because it rules that some land is too steep.

So an investment into planning parcels for concession may be money wasted.

Called in Spanish the zona maritima terrestre in Costa Rica, the area contains two parts. The first 50 meters inland measured from high tide is public land. Except for some exclusions, where the land is titled or part of a special government program like the Papagayo Project in Guanacaste, all Costa Ricans own the public land.

Behind the 50 meters is 150 more meters also considered public. But it is land that can be controlled by private parties via a concession. Municipalities and the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, or Costa Rica’s tourism board, manage the grant, theoretically for benefit of the public.

Article 47 of the maritime zone law states only foreigners with permanent residency of more than five years and companies with a Costa Rican holding majority control can own a concession. However, in practice, foreigners have lost concessions based on the five-year rule because it conflicts with other rules and regulations. Therefore, foreigners skirt the company ownership restriction by placing a puppet Costa Rican in ownership of more than 50 percent of the stock of a company applying to qualify.

This is dangerous. When a puppet decides to take over, the courts have upheld the right to do so. The Second Civil Appealing Court Decree No. 228 of June 18, 2001, states that articles 20 and 22 of the Civil Code condone no abuse and that any actions based on falsehoods are irreversible.

The first surprise:

The “El Boletín Judicial,” the court’s official newspaper, reported June 15 that an Italian filed a constitutional court case against Article 47. He is arguing the restrictions violate the equality of rights among persons under Article 33 of Costa Rica’s Constitution and various international agreements. In addition, the case states the restriction is unreasonable and xenophobic, creating a division based exclusively on the nationality of the petitioner.

Anyone with a legitimate interest in this constitutional matter can attach themselves to the case as a coadyuvante or advocate by July 6.

A constitutional expert believes the Italian may win based on a 1998 constitutional case that voided the law restricting foreigners owning stock in pager and beeper services.

The second surprise:

Within the maritime zone, where areas have been designated forest zones, Executive Decree Nº 31750- MINAE-TUR of April 22, 2004, established a new designation called the ZDE, or the zona de desarrollo ecoturístico, the ecotourism development zone.

An executive decree is a legally binding command or rule enacted by the executive branch of the government. The resultant conflict surrounding this decree has frozen all concessions in the maritime zone for the past two years. Some people love executive decisions because they feel they are good for Costa Rica’s tourism growth. Others hate them because they believe it is anti-ecology.

Municipalities, the Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía, and the tourism board have also had their internal, heated battles over the decree to decide who is the king of the roost over the maritime zone.

As the flames died down, MINAE, the environmental ministry, ultimately decides what is the ecotourism development zone and what is not. In doing so, the agency is rigidly applying Section b of Article 3 of the decree that states “No se permite la construcción de infraestructura en zonas que presenten pendientes superiores a las establecidas en el decreto Nº 27998 y 30763-MINAE.” This translates into “construction of infrastructure is prohibited in areas with a slope more than decreed in Decree 27988 and 30763.” Even after studying the documents, the exact slope the article refers to is unclear but appears to be 40 percent. It is also unclear if this is an average of the slope of a parcel.

This slope rule also existed in deforestation laws, abused flagrantly by loggers. The environmental ministry apparently now believes multi-million dollar projects should be canned because they are going to be built on a hill with trees.

Concession approval has turned into a millionaire business for some bureaucrats who line their pockets.

In summary, there is good news and bad news for foreign investors applying for concessions in the maritime zone. The good news is they may be able to do so legally without using a ruse. The bad news is if they have already invested in expensive concession land on a hill they may be out mega bucks if the slope is too steep for environmental ministry approval.

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Construction of beach developments in Costa Rica has been frozen because the Sala IV constitutional court is considering a complex case that pits the central government against its own employees and environmentalists.

The issue involves the concessions that developers get to build within the maritime zone, which is the public land located between the ocean and the first 200 meters from the average high tide line. Construction is not permitted in the first 50 meters, but long-lasting concessions are permitted in the rest.

The constitutional court is considering two actions that include a case filed by the union that represents workers in the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía. The workers union is suing because the ministry changed the rules so that developers now appear to have the right to cut down some of the trees in the maritime zone in order to build hotels and other projects.

President Abel Pacheco started this internal governmental civil war with his Executive Decree No. 31750-MINAE-TUR published May 14, 2004, in La Gaceta, the official public records newspaper, No. 96. Also involved in the document was the minister of turism, Rodrigo Castro, and the environmental minister, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez.

At stake is the definition of “ecotourism.” The workers union and many environmentalists do not agree with the definition expressed in a year-old decree. The decree modified the definition of “ecotourism,” saying the word now means something that contributes to the welfare of residents nearby and encourages exploration of the natural and cultural heritage.

An earlier definition of ecotourism put research first and tourism second. It said nothing about cutting down trees.

The 2004 decree permits developers to cut down trees for ecotourism development, some 15 percent of primary forest and 25 percent of secondary forest that happened to be in the maritime zone.

Around the same time as this decree was promulgated and on another front, the environmental minister requested the Procuraduría General de la República, the nation’s lawyer, to clarify who regulates concessions in the maritime zone. The answer, much to the surprise of everyone, was his ministry. This took the power away from the municipalities that have been granting the concessions.

Environmentalists immediately attacked and so did the municipalities. Each party has a different reason. The municipalities do not want to lose the power they have had. The environmentalists do not want to see any more trees cut down in Costa Rica. The country has been severely deforested in the past 50 years.

Rodríguez admitted to pressure from Casa Presidencial in two interviews with the press to allow accelerated cutting of trees in the maritime zone.

Two cases were filed with the Sala IV on this issue. One in May of 2004, shortly after the decree, was filed by FECON, the Costa Rican Federation for the Conservation of Natural Resources.

The other was filed in June 2004 by the workers union of the environmental ministry, called the Asociación Sindical de Trabajadores del Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía y Afines de Conservación.

What happens now for all those developers waiting on a concession in the maritime zone? That answer is in the hands of the constitutional court. The two cases above have been joined together by the court and accumulated as No. 04-005607-0007-CO.

To be or not to be, to cut down trees or not to cut down trees in the maritime zone, that is the question. There will be no definite answer anytime soon. Even when there is, more fights will arise because the issue is at the heart of very opposing viewpoints of Costa Rica’s future development and the meaning of progress.

In brief, this means a long time may pass before another maritime concession is approved in Costa Rica.

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Costa Rica has one of the best legal structures in Central America. There are rules to protect the rights of the people in almost all areas. However, these laws, because of their comprehensiveness, end up protecting the crooks, too.

One subject of special interest to investors and purchasers of property is the Maritime-Terrestrial Zone. In the last five years, land close to the ocean has increased in value astronomically, giving those in the fraud business more bait for their hooks.

The law of the Maritime-Terrestrial Zone was published in 1977, and the zone is composed of the first 200 meters, starting from the high tide line. The zone is divided into two areas:

1.) The first 50 meters is the Public Zone. All the people of Costa Rica have rights to this land. The Costa Rican government has complete sovereignty to protect the area for the people. With only a few exceptions, no person can argue rights of any kind in this area or eliminate public access to it.

Possession rights, as outlined in a previous story in this series, cannot be acquired in this area under any circumstances. This means private beaches just do not exist in Costa Rica.

2.) The next 150 meters is the Restricted Zone. This area can be leased or given in concession by the municipality that regulates it. Most municipalities have a Plan Regulador which outlines the rules, regulations and procedures to follow governing all land in the municipality, including the restricted area of Maritime-Terrestrial Zone.

In this area, persons can acquire the right to use, but NEVER OWN, the land. They can build houses or commercial structures, and even transfer the acquired rights to other persons or corporations. However, the property can never be registered in one’s name.

If the municipality or national government wants the area back, they can get it back by paying an indemnity for the value of the improvements made. This means they do not have to pay for any increase in value due to appreciation, as some people believe. They only have to pay for improvements, and the value of those improvements are accessed by a third party designated by the courts.

There are some exceptions:

The Papagayo Gulf project, located in Liberia and Carillo, is administrated by the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, Costa Rica’s tourism institute, and it has full control of the area, not any municipality.
Activists and some who live nearby have repeatedly protested being excluded from camping on the beach, which is in front of a luxury hotel.

Some properties in areas like Jacó, Parrita and other beaches inside the Maritime-Terrestrial Zone were registered to a person or in a company name many years ago by virtue of a special law, and those properties in the Restricted Zone can be sold or mortgaged in some cases.

A few municipalities still do not have a regulator plan, so in those areas the rules, regulations and procedures still do not exist to control Restricted Zones. In those areas, one needs to work with the municipality to create a regulator plan, which takes years.

Some beaches are not administered by municipalities but by the Ministerio de Ambiente, the environment ministry, and this body sets the rules.

A few, very few, people still own land where the titles were signed by the Spanish Crown hundreds of years ago, and these documents are still recognized as valid by the Costa Rican government.

The nature and all the exceptions surrounding the rights and use of Maritime-Terrestrial land are confusing, and even honest people make mistakes when negotiating this kind of property. Tricksters use the lack of clearly defined laws as a ruse to hoodwink the innocent.

It is possible to go to any beach area in Costa Rica and see FOR SALE signs on Public Zone and Restricted Zone property.

Are you interested in buying land close to or in front of the beach? Be careful. Do not accept anyone’s word that you can do it outright. Get someone to do the research you need to see if the property falls into one of the few exceptions listed above.

Costa Rica has many opportunities and good investments in real estate, but when it comes to the Maritime-Terrestrial Zone, dig deep when researching a project to avoid your dream turning into a nightmare.

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