How to check the state of your Chilean property from abroad

Short answer: in one afternoon, from any country, you can find out whether the property you own in Chile is still in your name, whether it carries debt and whether anyone has registered anything over it. It is four searches, all remote, and none of them needs a lawyer to request. What does help is knowing what you are looking at in each one, because a certificate read halfway is more reassuring than it should be.

First: which Registry the property belongs to

Chile has no single national property register. Each commune or group of communes has its own Real Estate Registry, and each keeps its own books and its own website.

That means requesting anything requires two facts: which commune the property is in and, if possible, its assessment roll number. With those two you identify the right Registry and go to its portal. Some have fairly complete online services and others do not, so the experience is not the same across the country.

If you do not have the roll number, start there. The assessment roll can be searched by address on the Internal Revenue Service website, and it is the fact that organises everything else: it identifies the property to the tax authority, to the Treasury and, in practice, to the Registry itself.

The four searches, and what to look at in each

1. Certificate of current title

This answers the central question: who is registered as the owner today.

What matters is not just the name but that it matches exactly who you believe the owner to be. If a deceased parent's name appears, the inheritance is not registered and there is a pending procedure worth resolving, as we explain in the guide on the house still in your parents' names. If several people appear, you are in co-ownership, with the consequences set out in the guide to shares and rights.

2. Certificate of mortgages, charges and restrictions

This shows what burdens the property: mortgages, attachments, restrictions on disposal, usufructs, registered easements and court measures.

A property can be perfectly registered in your name and still not be saleable, because of a restriction nobody remembers. This is also where an attachment appears if somebody has secured one over a debt you did not know was being pursued.

3. The property tax debt

It is checked by roll number on the General Treasury website. It shows the total and the unpaid instalments.

Two warnings about that figure. The first is that the debt follows the property, so it does not disappear because you left the country. The second is that not everything shown is necessarily enforceable: the older instalments may be time barred, and that has to be raised, it does not apply on its own. It is set out in the guide to the limitation period on property tax.

4. The rateable value and the tax authority's records

The tax authority website shows the rateable value, the land and building areas it has recorded, and the property's designated use.

Here it is worth comparing against reality. If it records buildings that no longer exist, you are paying too much. If it records less than what is built, there is a regularisation pending. And if the land area does not match the one registered at the Registry, there is a discrepancy that will have to be resolved some day, as we explain in the guide to rectifying the registered area.

What each document reveals

A fifth place to look: whether there are proceedings

The four searches above show the registry and tax position. One is missing that almost nobody carries out and that is sometimes the most important: whether there are court proceedings involving the property or its owner.

The judiciary's case search allows searching by name and by court. What matters is spotting two things: a claim over the property, and debt recovery proceedings that could end in an attachment over it.

This matters particularly for someone living abroad, because service is effected in Chile. It is perfectly possible for proceedings to exist against you that you know nothing about, simply because nobody could locate you. An attachment appearing from nowhere on the charges certificate almost always has a case behind it that started much earlier.

What a certificate will not tell you

A certificate describes the register, not reality. There are four important things that appear in none of the documents above and that are worth checking another way.

• Who is living there. The register does not know whether the house is empty, let or occupied. That is only found out by someone going to look, which is why it is worth having a trusted person nearby. If the answer is an occupation, the route is in the guide on a house occupied while you live abroad.
• Where the boundaries are on the ground. The registration describes them in words, often written decades ago. If the fence has moved or a neighbour has built over the line, that does not show up, and it is resolved with a survey and possibly a rectification of area.
• Whether what is built is authorised. The Registry registers land, not works. An unpermitted extension does not appear on the title certificate, but it does appear when you try to sell.
• Whether the property is inside or outside the urban limit. That comes from the municipality and defines almost everything that can be done with the land.

If you left a power of attorney with somebody in Chile

This is one of the strongest reasons to carry out this check, and the one least often mentioned.

A broad power, the kind signed so that a relative can handle paperwork, usually includes authority to sell, mortgage or charge. Those powers do not lapse with time: they remain in force until they are revoked. Someone who signed one ten years ago so that a sibling could pay the property tax may still have, today, somebody authorised to sell their house.

The check is the way to confirm it has not been used, by looking at who is registered as owner and what charges appear. And if the power is no longer needed, what applies is revoking it, which is also done before the consulate. How these powers work is on the page about the power of attorney from abroad.

This is not distrust. A broad power is also a risk for whoever holds it: it exposes them to being blamed for decisions they did not take. Revoking what is no longer used and granting specific powers when they are needed protects both sides.

How often it is worth doing

Once a year is enough where the property is quiet and somebody trusted looks in occasionally. It is worth doing sooner in three situations.

• When a family member dies. That is the moment ownership changes and procedures start running that nobody initiates.
• When you left a broad power with somebody in Chile. A power allowing a sale stays in force until revoked, and the check is how you confirm it was not used.
• Before taking any decision. Selling, letting, mortgaging or even repairing the house all start from the same point: knowing what state the title is in.

What to do if something does not fit

Finding something odd on a certificate is not cause for immediate alarm, but it is cause for not letting it pass. Most of these problems worsen on their own.

If the registered owner is not who it should be, what is usually missing is a registration of inheritance or a regularisation. If an unknown charge appears, find out where it comes from before it advances. If there is property tax debt, the first step is separating what is enforceable from what is time barred. And if somebody registered something in your name without your knowledge, that is examined in a full title search, which goes further back than a certificate.

What is worth keeping to hand

Anyone living abroad who owns property in Chile should be able to answer these five questions without rummaging through drawers. If you cannot answer one of them today, that is the pending work.

• The property's assessment roll number and the commune where it is registered.
• Which Real Estate Registry it belongs to.
• A digital copy of the registration of title and of the deed.
• Which powers of attorney you have granted, to whom and with what authority.
• Who the trusted person in Chile is who can go and look at the house.

How we handle this at Terreno en Regla

We carry out this full review remotely and within days. We request the certificates, read them together and give you in writing what each one says, what is in order and what is not, with the order in which to resolve it.

It is not the same as a title search, which reviews ten years of registry history and is done when a transaction is involved. This review is the step before: it tells you whether there is anything to resolve before deciding anything.

If something turns up, we continue with whatever applies: inheritance, regularisation or property tax, and all of it can be done with a power from your consulate, as we explain on the page about the power of attorney from abroad.

If after checking it you decide to sell, what follows has an arithmetic of its own: the tax cost, the allowance that is not income, and the withholding the buyer has to make. It is in selling Chilean property as a non resident.

Frequently asked questions