Other matters in Chile without travelling

Buying or selling without coming to Chile

A sale can be signed in Chile in your name under a special power of attorney granted at the consulate. Unlike a general power, this one requires the draft deed to be attached, precisely because it authorises disposing of a specific asset on specific terms.

Before that comes the title review. Buying at a distance without checking the registry history of the property is where most people lose money: mortgages in force, attachments, an unsettled estate on the seller side, areas that do not match the plan, or buildings without final approval that block mortgage lending. All of that is detected before signing or regretted afterwards.

If you are the one selling, there is a restriction worth bearing in mind: where the property was obtained through regularisation under Decree Law 2,695, the law prohibits transferring it during the first year counted from registration.

Regularising, correcting or subdividing

Where the land never had a registered title, the route is regularisation under Decree Law 2,695 before the Ministry of National Assets. It is a long procedure, between 18 and 24 months, requiring proof of material possession for at least five years and a land survey. Our fee is CLP 1,200,000 per property and it comes down when a family processes several plots together.

Where the title exists but the deed does not match reality, what applies is the correction of area and boundaries. And where the aim is to divide the land, it has to be assessed whether Decree Law 3,516 applies or the family exception of the Sabag Law, which allows plots of between 500 and 1,000 square metres to be transferred to a first degree relative.

All three require measurement on the ground, and that is where it helps that the surveying team is ours: nobody has to go and open the gate or coordinate with an outside office from another time zone.

Leases and management of the property

This is the matter we are most often asked about by people who left with the house rented out and over the years lost control at a distance. We draft the lease with the clauses that matter later when payment has to be enforced, we pursue unpaid rent and, if the tenant neither pays nor leaves, we handle the eviction.

The difference between a well drafted contract and one downloaded from the internet shows precisely at that moment: it determines which procedure can be used, which guarantees can be enforced and how long recovering the property takes. We cover it in detail in the section on civil litigation from abroad.

Powers of attorney and certificates

The consulate authorises the power of attorney, but it does not draft it for you. We prepare the wording with the exact powers the procedure requires, so that your consular appointment is short and you do not come away with a document that later turns out to be insufficient for what was needed.

We also obtain the certificates that are hard to get from abroad: registry copies and encumbrance certificates from the relevant Real Estate Registry, certificates from the Civil Registry, and the itemised appraisal certificate from the Internal Revenue Service, which is the basis for checking whether property taxes are correctly calculated.

Which powers to grant and which not

A power of attorney should not be broader than the task requires. An administrative matter needs only a narrow mandate; selling requires an express power of disposal and the draft deed; litigating requires a judicial mandate with the wording that procedural law demands.

Defining that scope before the consular appointment avoids two opposite problems: falling short and having to book another appointment, or signing a power that is far too broad over assets thousands of kilometres away. We tell you exactly what to ask for, and why.