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Real Estate

Since the Firm's establishment in 1939, Pacheco Coto has participated in all the different stages of the real estate market in Costa Rica, giving the firm unprecedented expertise and experience in this particular field.

Pacheco Coto's Real Estate Division is formed by highly specialized and experienced attorneys that advise clients with all kinds of real estate transactions, ranging from simple projects to the most complex and innovative developments in Costa Rica. The Real Estate Team has advised several foreign real estate firms in their investments in Costa Rica.

The Division assists clients on residential and commercial condominiums, emphasizing the importance of an early and thorough tax plan and a proper development and exit strategy.

With an in depth understanding of worldwide real estate legislation and of the local market, Pacheco Coto has spearheaded changes in bodies of law that had become obsolete, creating legislation that met current market needs and trends.

In addition to real estate purchase and sale transactions, the Division has also participated, amongst others, in the following particular developments:

• Created and structured the first gated community of single family homes established as a condominium in Costa Rica.
• Participated in the modification of legislation that allowed the development of a condominium of lots (raw land).
• Participated in the modification of legislation that allowed the construction of condominiums in phases, making each phase a separate condominium and thereafter reuniting all the phases into one master condominium.
• Created and structured the largest and most successful Office and Business Park in Costa Rica.
• Assisted a large Central American developer in the structuring and construction of an office park that included buildings authorized as Free Zone and buildings not authorized as Free Zone. On a second stage, obtained approval from the government to have, in the same building, floors authorized as Free Zone and floors not authorized as Free Zone. (Prior to this, buildings authorized as Free Zone could only operate in office parks solely constructed for that purpose and such building had to be entirely occupied by companies enjoying Free Zone status).
• Assisted a local client in the structuring of a joint venture involving a publicly traded US REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) and a major Latin American Developer in the development of a major Commercial Shopping Center in Costa Rica.
• Counseled a Coastal Real Estate Project in setting up a concession land structure that allowed it to sell individual interests when the legislation did not permit condominiums in concession land.
• Currently counseling a Coastal Real Estate Project in the constitution of a gated residential community under a Civil Association structure since the project cannot apply to the condominium regime.
• Structured the legal framework of a high end real estate project in the North Pacific.
• Counseled various multimillion dollar acquisitions of a real estate property in the Papagayo Gulf.
• Currently representing the legal interests of the second biggest real estate project in the Central Pacific.
• Acted as legal counsel for the sellers in various of the largest single real estate transactions in Costa Rica.
• Designed and implemented fiscal and corporate structures for multiple complex real estate projects, allowing the most advantageous tax and fiscal situations and providing for practical and expedite exit strategies for the investors.

Pacheco Coto's Real Estate Division has a multiple array of clients. Some of our client's disclosed projects are:

• Bosque Coral
• Bosques de Lindora Cond.
• Café del Mar
• Cumbre Mar
• Hacienda del Mar
• Hacienda Real Lindora
• Nativa Resort
• Parque Empresarial Forum
• Parque Empresarial Forum2
• Pinilla Academy
• Reserva Conchal
• St. Regis Residences Costa Rica
• Tango Mar
• The Luxury Collection at Papagayo
• The View Club
• Waimea Point
• Hermosa Highlands