As if to make up for the lack of national regulation and the many pitfalls awaiting the unwary buyer, Costa Rica has a robust national registry that lists all properties and their precise legal status, including ownership, liens, legal actions, property histories, in sum everything that a buyer needs to know to do the due diligence necessary to understand the status of the property of interest.

The National Registry is in fact more extensive than just real estate records and includes national records on physical persons, corporations, motor vehicles, and a lot more.

However, it's not just that there is an institution that has this information, this stuff is all online and publicly accessible. With just a little bit of training, anybody with Spanish language skills and a little bit of rudimentary web savvy can do his or her own due diligence on the properties of interest to follow along or precede findings by your own attorney and to assess the manifestations made by the sellers or their agents.