Technical inspection before the promesa: a beachfront house in Manzanillo del Mar

A title review tells you who may sell; a technical inspection tells you what is being sold. They are two separate engagements, both paid for by the buyer, and in Manzanillo del Mar the second one is usually skipped because the buyer is not in the city to open the door.

What gets inspected is not the same checklist for every property: when what you are buying is a beachfront house, the report has to address what the nature of that property actually puts at risk, not a generic form about damp patches and sockets. That matters for money and for timing. For money, because a repair not found before the promesa de compraventa is signed gets paid for afterwards by the buyer, and in a propiedad horizontal (condominium regime) it can end up shared among all owners through a special assessment. For timing, because before the promesa whatever turns up is a matter for negotiation, and afterwards it is only a claim. The report is signed by a professional who answers for what it says; nobody signs the brochure.

A beachfront house is bought differently because one of its boundaries was not drawn by a surveyor: the water draws it and the State defines it. In front of the lot lies a strip that is bien de uso público of the Nation —public domain— which cannot be sold, fenced or acquired by the passage of time. So part of what you enjoy from the terrace will never belong to anyone, and the public keeps its right of access. That condition reshapes the whole review. A clean deed and a clean folio are not enough: you need to know where that line sits today, whether any structure on the lot crossed it, and whether a proceeding is open before the maritime or environmental authority, because building on public land is not cured with money or at a notaría. The second point is that the property lives inside a medium that attacks it. Salt air and surf work on the structure year round, so what you buy includes maintenance that never pauses and, very often, a coastal protection work whose owner and whose duty to repair are worth identifying before signing, especially when it sits outside the boundary or is shared with neighbors.

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.

What is specific to Manzanillo del Mar

What to verify, step by step

1. Ask the curaduría urbana (the private permitting office) for the licencia de construcción and the approved plans, and check what use, area and height that permit actually authorised against what you are being shown. Anything built beyond it is not cured by the deed.
2. What the report has to address point by point for a beachfront house: where the zona de bajamar (the tidal strip, public domain of the Nation) ends in front of the lot, because nothing built on it conveys with the house; whether the fence, pool or terrace encroach on that strip, and whether any proceeding is open before the maritime or environmental authority and how wave protection was solved and who owns the protection works, which often sit outside the boundary line.
3. And what the same report should pick up for the sector in Manzanillo del Mar: whether the lot is public wasteland of the Nation, in which case it is allocated rather than sold and no private deed can cure it; whether there is a right of way to the beach and where it runs, a constant source of litigation between neighbours and the land use the POT assigns it, because much of what is marketed as residential is still classified otherwise.
4. Engage the visit with an engineer or architect you hire yourself, not the one the seller offers, and require a written report with dated photographs, a signature and the professional's licence number. Ask Camacol Bolívar who carries out technical surveys in the region and ask for references you can check.
5. Agree in writing with the seller on the date of the visit and on access to the property before signing the promesa, and attach the report to the promesa together with the agreed repairs and who pays for them.
6. Ask the District whether any administrative proceeding is open against the property for building without a permit or for breaching planning rules, because that follows the property and not the seller.

Mistakes that cost money

• Accepting the report the seller or the developer hands over. The useful report is the one the buyer commissioned and can question.
• Leaving the inspection until after the promesa, when the price is already agreed. Whatever surfaces then is argued from the weaker position.
• Confusing the technical inspection with the title review. One looks at the construction and the other at the chain of ownership; you need both, and not from the same person.

Frequently asked questions

Can the inspection be done without being in Cartagena?

Yes, and it usually is: you hire the professional, arrange access with the seller and receive the signed report. What you should not delegate is choosing who does it.

Does the inspection change with the type of property?

In substance, yes. What has to be verified on a beachfront house comes from the nature of the property —what is privately owned, what is common property, what the permit authorises— and not from a general list of finishes.

Who pays for repairs the report turns up?

Whoever agreed to in writing. If the report is attached to the promesa with the fixes and who owes them, you have something to enforce; if it lives in an email, you do not.

Where to check it

• Curadurías Urbanas de Cartagena — whether a current building or subdivision permit exists and exactly what it authorises
• Camacol Bolívar — the industry's own figures on housing starts and launches in Bolívar
• Alcaldía Mayor de Cartagena de Indias — property tax, betterment levies and District procedures
• Cartagena de Indias — the rules of the municipality Manzanillo del Mar belongs to

Official bodies. Specific figures are requested there, not copied from a listing.

Updated 2026-11-06