The house is still in my deceased parents' names and I live abroad

Short answer: while the property remains registered in your deceased parents' names, nobody can sell it, let it formally or mortgage it, and you are not the owner in anyone's eyes. An inheritance does not transfer itself with time or with use. The posesión efectiva has to be obtained and then the property registered in the heirs' names at the Registry. Both can be done from abroad with a power of attorney, but every year that passes makes it dearer and more complicated.

Why time works against you

The story repeats. The parents died years ago, the house was shut up or is looked after by a relative, and the children are spread between Chile and two or three countries. Nobody did anything because nobody was going to sell, and because doing it from abroad seemed impossible.

The problem is that the property does not freeze. It keeps generating obligations and stays exposed, and each year adds a layer.

• Property tax accumulates. The roll is still live and the debt grows with adjustments and interest. Part of it may be time barred, but the limitation period has to be raised and does not apply on its own, as we explain in the guide to the limitation period on property tax.
• Chained estates appear. If one of the siblings dies before it is processed, there are now two estates to resolve, and in order. Each one adds cost, time and signatures.
• The documents age. Certificates that had to be requested at a consulate, witnesses who are lost, papers nobody can find.
• An empty house gets occupied. It is the most expensive ending and the most common where nobody lives nearby. We cover it in the guide on what to do when your house is occupied.

There are two steps, and almost everyone forgets the second

The commonest confusion is believing that the posesión efectiva is the end of it. It is not. They are two separate procedures and the second is the one that actually puts the property in your name.

The posesión efectiva

It is the official recognition of who the heirs are. Where there was no will, it is obtained before the Civil Registry. Where there was a will, it goes through the courts. The full step by step, with its documents and timescales, is in the guide to the posesión efectiva.

The special registration of inheritance

This is what changes the name at the Real Estate Registry. Without it, the certificate of current title still shows your parents' names, and to a buyer, a bank or a court you are not the owner.

This is the stage most often neglected, because the posesión efectiva produces a document that looks like an ending and is not.

The test for whether it is done is simple. Request a certificate of current title for the property. If your parents' names appear, the special registration is missing. If the heirs' names appear, it is done. How to request it from abroad is in the guide on checking your Chilean property remotely.

How it is done without travelling

Neither step requires you to be in Chile. What is needed is a power of attorney, granted before the Chilean consulate in your city, in favour of whoever will act for you.

The detail matters. A power drafted in general terms usually falls short when it comes to signing the registration or selling later, and then another one has to be granted and you are back at the consulate. It is better for the text to be drafted by whoever will handle the matter in Chile, with the specific powers the procedure requires, and for you to sign it already written. How the power works and which powers to include is on the page about the power of attorney from abroad.

Documents issued outside Chile, such as a foreign death or birth certificate, need an apostille to be valid here. That is a procedure in the country where the document was issued, not in Chile, and it is worth starting early because in some countries it takes time.

When the heirs are in several countries

This is the normal scenario, not the exception, and it has two practical consequences.

The first is logistical: each heir grants their own power at their own consulate, and the timings do not line up. It is worth coordinating from the start who signs what and in what order, rather than chasing signatures as they become necessary.

The second goes to substance. Once the inheritance is registered, the siblings are left in co-ownership: each owns a share in the whole and not a defined part of the house. That means none of them can sell alone, and selling needs all of them. It is the same problem we explain in the guide to shares and rights.

Where one of them will not or cannot be found, there are two different routes. If there is simply no agreement, what applies is partition proceedings. If the problem is a missing signature to close a sale, we cover it in the guide on selling without an heir's signature.

The order worth following

The order is not arbitrary. Step 1 defines how much work lies ahead, and steps 2 and 3 are the ones that take longest when they are left to the end.

The mistakes that cost most

• Believing the posesión efectiva is enough. It is the commonest error and the one the buyer discovers, not the heir.
• Granting too general a power. It ends up insufficient precisely for the act that matters, and back you go to the consulate.
• Leaving the property tax debt for later. It is worth knowing how much it is and how much is still enforceable before deciding whether to sell.
• Dividing the house by word of mouth. Agreements between siblings about who gets which room change nothing about the co-ownership and are recorded nowhere.
• Assuming the house is registered. Sometimes the problem is older: the parents did not have it in their names either. What applies then is regularisation of title, and it is better discovered at the start.

When the parents did not have it in their names either

This is the scenario that turns up when the first certificate is requested, and it changes the whole case. The family takes it for granted that the house was the parents' because they lived there for forty years, and the register says something else: the registered owner is a grandparent, an uncle, the original developer, or there is simply no registration.

There is no inheritance to process yet here, because you do not inherit what the deceased did not have registered. What applies is sorting the title first, and the usual route is regularisation of title under Decree Law 2.695, which allows registration in the name of whoever has physically possessed the property while meeting the statutory requirements.

Two warnings about this. The first is that regularisation has possession requirements that have to be proved, and living abroad does not help in proving them: possession there has usually been exercised by whoever stayed in Chile. The second is that discovering this late is expensive, because months may have been spent gathering papers for a posesión efectiva that was not the right procedure.

Which is why the first step is never gathering documents. It is requesting a certificate of current title and seeing what it says. It costs little, it is done online from any country, and it is what determines whether the case is an inheritance, a regularisation or something else.

What has to be paid, and what to find out first

An inheritance matter carries three kinds of cost, and it helps to keep them separate because they are paid to different recipients at different moments.

• Inheritance tax. It is a progressive tax calculated on what each beneficiary receives, with exemptions and reductions depending on the relationship. What to take away is that it exists, that it is determined case by case, and that it is not paid on the rateable value but on the value properly attributed to the assets.
• The debts the property carries. Unpaid property tax, utility accounts, service charges if it is a flat. Property tax debt follows the property, which is why it is worth knowing how much it is and how much is still enforceable before deciding.
• The cost of the procedure itself. Registry fees, publications where required, legalisations and apostilles in the country where the documents were issued, and professional fees.

Of those three, the only one that can be estimated before starting is the second, because the debt is checked online. The other two depend on facts that only emerge once the case is opened.

What to do with the house afterwards

Once the registration is complete, options exist for the first time. The three usual ones have different consequences and are worth deciding among all the heirs at the outset, not afterwards.

Selling

It requires all the co-owners, or someone holding a sufficient power from each of them. It can be done entirely remotely if the powers are properly drafted. The page on selling a property without travelling sets out how that transaction is organised.

Letting

This works where the family does not want to part with the house, but it requires somebody to manage it and a decision about what happens to the rent between several owners. We cover it on the page on letting while living abroad.

Dividing or leaving the co-ownership

Where one wants to sell and another does not, or where somebody wants to keep the house and compensate the rest, the route is partition proceedings. It is not a punishment or a quarrel: it is the procedure the law provides so that nobody is forced to stay in co-ownership against their will.

What does not work is leaving it as it is. A house in co-ownership, with no manager, no formal tenancy and nobody nearby, is exactly the situation that ends in occupation or in a debt that eats the value of the property. Deciding not to decide is also a decision, and usually the most expensive one.

How we handle this at Terreno en Regla

We start with the diagnosis, which is done remotely and within days: who is registered today, what charges burden the property, how much is owed and whether more than one estate is involved. That produces the real map of the case, which is often different from the one the family had in mind.

Then we draft the powers with the authority the procedure needs and send them to you already written, so that each heir only has to sign at their consulate. We handle the posesión efectiva and the special registration of inheritance, and coordinate the timing between countries.

If after that the property has to be sold, divided or a disagreement between siblings resolved, we continue with whatever route applies, and if the problem turns out to be one of title, with regularisation.

All of the above assumes your father or mother had their last domicile in Chile. If they died domiciled in the United States the route changes and becomes judicial, as we explain in inheriting a Chilean property from the United States.

Frequently asked questions