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Travel-To-Honduras Discussion List Archive
| Posted On: | 08-May-2005 | | From: | "Charles R. Meador, Jr." [charlie.....com]
| | Subject: | [travel-to-honduras] Re: Real Estate Expertise
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Norm -
Read Kenton Ownbey (Post #624) on another option for opening a bank
account.
I did buy without a residency relying on Decree 90-90 provisions
which exempt up to three quarters of an acre from the restrictions
against foreign land ownership in coastal areas (which should be
enough) and the fact that my co-owner and wife is Honduran by birth.
There is also some very old treaty material between the Honduran and
United States governments that I understand was successfully used pre
Decree 90-90 to uphold US citizen land ownership in the country
though I have not researched this fully.
Without residency you have to leave the country, technically, every
90 days for 72 hours. You can extend your visa monthly up to that
time for a small fee. Up until at least October of last year you
could extend your visa for significantly longer through the
immigration office in La Ceiba. An acquaintance of ours did so for a
year and six months before leaving. With residency, as you know, you
can open a bank account. You can also get a Honduran drivers license.
Check through Melanie Wetzel for a recommendation at
http://www.honduranlaw.com/ for an experienced, competent and
reliable real estate attorney in La Ceiba.
As for the advise not trusting real estate agents, the inexperience
of your Honduran friends in La Ceiba is showing. In buying real
estate, don't trust real estate agents, don't trust attorneys, don't
trust sellers and don't trust your friends in La Ceiba. By that I
mean don't take anything at face value, investigate everything you
can personally (on the ground, at the registro, at the municipalidad,
etc.) and ask questions. Answers that don't seem right generally
aren't.
The land buying, title searching and registration process in Honduras
is very similar to that which was prevalent in the United States in
the past. There are different land measurements with which you
should become familiar and brush up on your metric conversions.
Check out Kenton Ownbey's site (http://www.honduras-realestate.com/)
as to Land Measurements and Legal Matters.
The only thing which I would recommend that Kenton add to his Legal
Matters page would be something regarding payment of taxes on
property (how, when and where) and the very important and separate
step of registering your purchase with the Municipalidad so you are
the owner on the tax rolls. This occurs after the purchase is
recorded with the land registry.
Charlie Meador
Coco Pando Resort
www.cocopando.com
La Ceiba, Honduras
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/travel-to-honduras/
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