How do agency fees work when selling in Manzanillo del Mar?

Sell property in Cartagena

Real estate fees when selling in Manzanillo del Mar Here is what changes in this sector and what to have ready before going to market.

What matters is not the amount charged but how the arrangement is structured, and that belongs in writing before work begins. Three things need defining. First, the base on which compensation is calculated: whether it rests on the closing figure or the asking figure, whether it covers the property alone or includes furniture and other assets, and how currency is handled when the buyer pays from abroad. Second, when it is earned and when it is paid, which do not always coincide, and what happens if a deal collapses after the purchase promise is signed. Third, what is included and what is billed separately: promotion, photography and video, notary and registry costs, transaction taxes, and legal services, which in Colombia are provided by Nisimblat Law. It is also worth settling whether the engagement is exclusive, for how long, what happens if a buyer reaches you directly, and how compensation is shared when another intermediary takes part, including allied brokers abroad. A clear agreement removes nearly every argument that arises at the end.

What Manzanillo del Mar is, and what changes there

In Manzanillo del Mar the difficulty is not reading a registry record: often there is none to read. Much of what is offered never entered the registry at all, and what the counterparty holds is possession documented in private papers, with an acta de colindantes, a neighbors' boundary statement, and sometimes a sworn declaration before a notary, none of which is title of ownership. That moves the process to authorities absent in the other sectors: the Agencia Nacional de Tierras, the national land agency, where the soil belongs to the Nation; IGAC, the cadastral institute, and the district cadastre to identify the parcel; and the corregidor or the police inspector when occupation is disputed. Verification becomes a matter of fieldwork and mapping before notarial work: comparing the survey against the cadastral record and against what is actually fenced, because the same lot has been sold under different descriptions. The counterparty is usually a local family or a go-between with no written mandate, and that mandate has to be requested. Infrastructure is not handled by any single utility: a well or tanker water, a septic pit, and a side road whose upkeep is not always assigned to anyone.

Buyer from Bogotá

The mortgage comes from a Colombian bank, against a local credit history, not from a bank abroad and not from the seller: the bank pulls your record from the centrales de riesgo, the credit bureaus, asks for proof of income and orders its own avalúo, the appraisal, and title study. Whoever answers for the approval is the bank's mortgage department, not the sales office. Ask in writing for the approval letter and the disbursement instructions, because each disbursement is supported by a different document: first the promesa de compraventa, the purchase promise, and then the escritura once registered with the mortgage recorded on it. The money does not enter through the regulated exchange market and there is no foreign investment to register with the Banco de la República; what does have to be assembled is proof of the source of funds, which is a separate matter and is requested by the bank and the notaría. You can sign in person, so no poder and no apostille are needed, yet you manage the property from another city: settle who receives it, who pays the predial, the property tax, and the building fee, and who issues the paz y salvo, the clearance certificate, before each step. What sets you apart from a Medellín buyer is not the law, which is the same, but the channel: your file is usually studied in the city where you live. Tax questions go to the DIAN and to an accountant.

The next step

Write to us with what you are looking for and we will send you what is available. Availability, price and the terms of each property are confirmed before any offer.

Back to Sell property in Cartagena