Utilities for a retail unit in Crespo: availability, meter and prior debt

Water running on the day of the visit does not prove that availability has been certified, and the meter feeding a retail unit is not always registered to the property itself. These are two separate documents, issued by different bodies, and a buyer who asks for neither inherits whatever was never checked.

Service availability is evidenced by a certification from the utility company for that specific property, and it is the document the curaduría looks at when a permit is requested. A seller's word, a temporary hook-up or a line drawn from a neighbour are not the same thing, and the difference decides whether a retail unit can be lived in, conveyed or remodelled. Alongside that sits the bill: in Colombia utility balances follow the property rather than the person who ran them up, so the account status and the name recorded on the meter belong in the promesa de compraventa (the binding promise of sale) and not in an act of trust. How much is owed is for the utility to state; who pays it is what gets agreed in writing before signing.

A retail unit is bought differently because you are not buying a space but the possibility that someone can trade in it, and that possibility is granted by third parties. Two permissions are needed and nobody bundles them: the one the land-use rules give for that specific lot, and the one the copropiedad's reglamento gives, which need not agree. On top of those sit the tenant's own business permits, applied for activity by activity. The second difference is the relationship with the tenant. A lease of premises for commercial purposes runs under rules distinct from residential tenancies, with an expectation of continuity for the tenant that is worth having a lawyer spell out before signing, because the buyer steps into a contract that already exists and inherits its history. The third is that the unit depends on what lies outside it: façade, signage, pavement, loading area and public access are normally bien común, common property, or public space. What makes the unit profitable, in other words, is not inside its walls and is not decided from within the unit.

Here the file is complicated by a neighbor nobody negotiates with: the air terminal. The neighborhood sits under the approach path, so a building project is not reviewed only by the curaduría urbana, the private office that grants permits, but also by the civil aviation authority, which sets the obstacle limitation surfaces, and by the operator running the airport under concession. That reorders the procedure: before buying with any plan to add height, request the land-use opinion from the District and ask about the aviation ruling, because that is where a seller's assumptions collapse. On top of height there is noise exposure, which never appears on the certificado de tradición y libertad, the registry history and encumbrance certificate, and does appear in the airfield regime, so the exposure sits in the rules over the land rather than in the title itself. The counterparty differs too: a formal neighborhood of long-standing owners, with unsettled sucesiones, estate proceedings, and houses carved into several apartments without registering the split, so compare the original permit against what stands before accepting a per-unit valuation.

What is specific to Crespo

What to verify, step by step

1. Ask the utility company for a water and sewer availability certification issued for the property's registry folio, not for the development or the sector.
2. Request the latest account statement for each service and ask the company whether there are payment arrangements, refinancings or disputed charges on that meter.
3. Check whose name the meter is in and whether it matches the unit being shown: in a copropiedad, individual meters sit next to common-area services billed through the dues.
4. Check what belongs to a retail unit itself and does not change with the sector: whether the POT (the city's land-use plan) allows commercial use on that specific lot and whether the reglamento de propiedad horizontal admits it — two separate permissions, and you need both; whether the particular activity planned requires a concepto de uso de suelo (a land-use ruling) and who applies for it, owner or tenant and how façade, signage, pavement and loading area are allocated, since these are usually bien común even though the unit uses them daily.
5. Check in addition what Crespo requires in particular, with the authority that imposes it: what building height the lot allows under the airport approach path, because the aviation restriction stacks on top of District zoning and is the first fact left out when a lot is offered; whether what stands matches the permit and the registry folio, a common gap in family houses split into apartments without registering the split and how shoreline protection in front of the property was resolved and which body answers for that work, because it is not the seller.
6. Have the promesa state who answers for balances predating closing, and ask for the paz y salvo (a clearance certificate for the account) before signing; it can be requested without being in Colombia.

Mistakes that cost money

• Treating the bill the seller shows you as an account statement. A bill covers one billing period; a statement shows the balance and any arrangements in force.
• Assuming service because the main runs along the street. A main in front of the lot and a metered connection to the lot are different things, and on land purchases that is exactly where the sums fail.
• Forgetting common-area services. In a copropiedad the lift, pump and lighting consumption arrives through the administration dues, not through the unit's own bill.

Frequently asked questions

Does the seller's utility debt pass to the buyer?

The balance is charged against the property, so it is a point to be agreed expressly in the promesa. Ask the utility for a certification of the account status and have your attorney review how that clause was drafted.

Who issues the availability certification?

The company that provides the service at that property. The curaduría and the Alcaldía require it as an annex, but they do not issue it.

Can all of this be requested from outside Colombia?

The account statement and the certification are requested from the utility and in several cases handled online. Where the request has to come from the owner, the seller files it and you receive the document in writing.

Where to check it

• Alcaldía Mayor de Cartagena de Indias — property tax, betterment levies and District procedures
• Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Cartagena — land use, the rules applying to the property and protected land
• Curadurías Urbanas de Cartagena — whether a current building or subdivision permit exists and exactly what it authorises
• Cartagena de Indias — the rules of the municipality Crespo belongs to

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

Updated 2026-11-06