How to Purchase Uruguay Real Estate for Settlement?

Introduction:

Uruguayan economic policies and deregulation of the real estate market, which has been in place for over 20 years, have helped to make Uruguay an internationally known real estate market.

Uruguay has a legal regime which provides for the free entry and exit of foreign currency and also permits it to be freely converted into the local currency.

Currency for transactions:

All real estate transactions are carried out in US Dollars, whatever the value of the transaction. As will be seen below, for certain tax aspects the value is recalculated in Uruguayan pesos and taxes are paid in pesos, but the transaction itself will always be in US dollars.

Who can buy?

Anybody is free to purchase Uruguay land for sale and to that end they can purchase in the name of a physical person or a legal person. It makes no difference if the person – physical or legal - is Uruguayan or not, resident or not – all are treated the same. The country has its own forms of company which can be used if desired and for over 10 years it has also been possible to establish Trusts specifically for investment in real estate.

Minor restrictions on purchases:

There are two minor restrictions in the case of Uruguay realestate beachfront . These are:

●        Any purchase or acquisition of rural property must be in the name of a physical person (national or foreign, resident or not) or by a company with named partners or limited companies with named shareholders, who are physical persons and

●        the sale of rural property of over 500 hectares, must first be offered to the Instituto Nacional de Colonización (a public organism which is intended to promote the growth of the rural population), who can purchase the land at the same price as the proposed purchaser.

Legal requirements and fees:

As stated previously there are no restrictions on who can purchase property – except for those affecting rural property. However the purchaser must use a public notary to act for him in preparing the legal documents. The standard fee for a notary is 3% + VAT (plus taxes and expenses) on a purchase and  1% + VAT on a sale.

The purchase process:

The process starts with the signing of a reservation contract – a "boleto de reserva" in Spanish. This is the formal acceptance of an offer to purchase and binds both parties to go ahead with the transaction. But unlike in other jurisdictions the title investigation is only carried out after the signing of the contract, so if any defects in title are found then the contract can be rescinded without penalty. A 10% deposit is usually paid on the validation of the contract and if one party evasions then it is usual to comprise a penalty division comparable to the deposit to be paid by the defaulting party. The deposit is held by the notary in an escrow account. It is normal for the reservation contract to establish a period of between 30-60 days to proceed to closing.

As above the standard notarial fee is 3% +VAT. If one adds on the estate agents fee and all expenses and taxes in general one should expect transaction costs on a purchase to be around 8% of the purchase price.

Conclusion:

For last few years Uruguayan real estate has been a benign haven for Latin American stockholders, mainly those from Argentina. But over the last 10 years there has been a growing presence of Europeans and North Americans, due in part to large rises in the value of farmland particularly.