Selling a Property
The process of selling real property in Argentina has certain requirements which apply to foreigners or Argentine citizens living abroad.
Choosing the real estate agent to handle the sale:
It is essential to choose an appropriate state agent for each sale as the agent, in addition to the basic qualities of honesty, seriousness, experience, etc. has to be acquainted with the right market for the type of property to sell. Selling a house in the country or an apartment in the center of the city is not the same thing. A few agents work with all kind of public, but most have their “expertise or strength”.
Make sure that the chosen estate agent knows how to manage in the right market.
Sale authorization:
Once you have chosen the right estate agent, he/she will ask you to sign a sale authorization enabling him/her to legally offer your property in the market. Basically, this document states some common conditions to any authorization, such as: price, validity of the authorization, estate agent’s commission, etc. Pay attention to the drafting of the sale price, since if the agent gets an offer from a prospective buyer for the price agreeded in the authorization, and you decide not to carry out the operation, you will have to pay the real estate agent’s commission anyway.
Procedure to get a Code of Property Transfer Offer (COTI)
COTI is the “Code of Property Transfer Offer”. It is a code, not a tax, and must be obtained by the titleholder or one of the titleholders of a property prior to the transaction, offer or transfer of a property or ownership rights over a property to be built, whichever comes first. This Code must be processed when the price of any of these acts, the estate tax base or tax value is equal to or greater than $ 5.000.000 pesos (Argentine pesos five million).
If you are not resident in the country, you must process this code through a tax code to access to AFIP online fiscal services. The code of property transfer offer, as a non resident, must be processed by a representative or a proxy.
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The Reservation – Boleto de Compra venta
The agent will submit to your consideration a proposal of a potential buyer. If you accept it, you will have to sign the reservation and the state agent will remove your property from the market. On the contrary, if you reject the offer, you only have to comunicate your decision so he/she will continue working with your property.
Once the price and conditions have been agreed upon, the purchaser may decide to execute a public deed immediately, or enter into a Bill of Sale whereby the purchaser pays a sum of money (around 30%) and the conditions to be fulfilled by both parties are agreed upon, such as the place and deadline of execution of the title deed, the deadline for obtaining the ITI (Real Property Sales Tax) withholding certificate for non-residents before the AFIP (Federal Administration of Public Revenue), and the designated notary public, among others.
Taxes related to property purchase and sale in Argentina:
- Stamp tax
- Tax on property transfer
- Income tax
- Personal assets tax
Title deed and registration costs:
Since you are the seller of the transaction, you cannot choose the notary public to draw up the titles, because that is a buyer’s right. Anyway, you can always hire your own notary public or trusted representative to make sure the operation is carried out correctly. Remember that you must pay the notary public the expenses prior to the registration, and the proportional costs of the property services until the transmisión of the possession.
We can assist you during this process, please click here to inquire about this service
Buying a property in Argentina
There are common steps to all operations performed in the country. It is very important that you receive honest and appropriate advice from a professional with expertise in the peculiarities of these processes in Argentina. The quality of information received when making decisions on these operations often determines their success.
First step: choosing the property and making a reservation
Once you have decided to invest, you must find the right property for your needs, priced in accordance with the amount you are willing to invest. The “multiple listing” system is not common in Argentina, so if you are willing to start a search on your own, you will have to explore and visit many real state agencies to expand your possibilities.If you do not want to go through the process of examining neighbourhoods and their real estate agencies in order to find the property of your dreams, you can hire someone to do it for you.
Once the property has been chosen, it is time to make an offer. In Argentina, most sellers are willing to negotiate a discount on the asking price. This negotiation is done at the time of reservation, where, in addition to the price, payment terms are established and a cash deposit is placed with the real estate agent to confirm a real interest in the property.
If the seller accepts your offer, this money remains in the real estate agent’s possession until the bill of sale or the title deed is executed. On the other hand, if the seller rejects your offer, either you make a counteroffer or the reservation money goes back to the purchaser.