Landlord and Tenant Law in Costa Rica compared to Latin America

Costa Rica: Landlord and tenant laws

The amount of control the landlord has over his property, measured on a five-point rating scale:

• Strongly Pro-landlord = 2
• Pro-landlord = 1
• Neutral = 0
• Pro-tenant = -1
• Strongly Pro-tenant= -2

We look at factors such as the following:

• Can rents be freely agreed between landlord and tenant?
• Can the landlord collect security and rental deposits, and are the amounts limited?
• Must contracts be for specified periods? Can either landlord or tenant terminate early, and what are the penalties for early termination? Does the tenant have a right to extend?
• Does the court system work? How long can it take to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent?

For fuller details see the Data FAQ. The resulting rating is the Global Property Guide's view, and not necessarily that of the contributing law firm (in cases where we have asked law firms for contributions and input).

Source: Global Property Guide Research, Contributing Law Firms

Costa Rica does not publish house price statistics. The Banco Central de Costa Rica has general statistics on production, employment, business confidence, the country's fiscal position, etc. The Instituto Nacional de Estad'stica y Censos has rather basic web pages. The Ministerio de Hacienda de la Republica de Costa Rica has quite a creditable-looking set of pages, but some of the actual data is very old.