This has got to be one of the greatest tip's I've ever heard of in my journey of investing in Costa Rica. It's also something I've never thought of to be hones as you don't tend to think of these things until the moment you need it.
In Costa Rica citizens are given an ID # and this number is the same number for life. It never changes and they memorize it because they need to share it often. Opening a bank account, Buying a home, Purchasing something in the store, obtaining credit. Literally everything and anything will require this ID Number.
So what happens when you're a Canadian, American or European Citizen investing into this country? You'll provide your passport and they will document this number. For example when I purchased my home they took a copy of my Passport photo / ID # page. It is used in the purchase agreement as well as the corporation I set up to hold the homes in. The issue lies in the fact that our Canadian passports expire every 5 or 10 years. So should you never pay a lawyer to update your corporation you'll have a very hard time selling or transferring your property without this document and will have to jump through extra & expensive hoops to prove who you are.
The simplest thing for this is when you renew your passport is to KEEP YOUR ORIGINAL PASSPORT in a safe and use it when needed. The next simplest thing to do is to update your documents every 10 years with a lawyer but that will have an added cost. It really depends on how you want to proceed. Personally, If you're applying for residency I would leave it in my original passports # even if it's expired and wait until I have my local residency number that will remain the same forever and then pay the lawyer to update the documents with my COSTA RICAN ID #.
I hope you found this tip as useful as I did and if you have any helpful advice to add please reach out to us we'd be happy to add this to our blog.
PURA VIDA.
-----
Kristy & Eric
Dog Paws & Sandy Hair Be sure to check out our Villa Rentals.
Thinking of Buying / Selling in Canada or Costa Rica? Feel free to reach out as a licensed professional I have trusted contacts to connect you with if I can't do it myself!