The First 60 Days: Registration, Handover, and What to Do Before You Unpack

Almost everything written for foreign buyers in Colombia stops at the notary. That is roughly like a driving guide that ends when you get the keys. The two months after closing contain several things that are cheap to do correctly and expensive to fix later.

Escritura signed does not mean owner recorded

The escritura pública is the deed, executed before a notary. Registration is a separate act, performed at the Oficina de Registro de Instrumentos Públicos, which enters the transfer onto the property's folio and makes it effective against third parties.

Between signature and registration there is a window. During it, the public record still shows the previous state of affairs. This is precisely why the promesa and closing sequence matters, and why you do not relax until the registration is confirmed.

Check the registered value on the certificado too. It should match your escritura. If a visa application depends on this property, this is the number the Cancillería will look at, and discovering a discrepancy now is far better than discovering it during an application. See the sequencing guide.

Handover: photograph everything before you touch anything

Colombian purchases do not typically come with the professional inspection culture that buyers from North America or the UK expect. The handover is often informal, and disputes about what was broken when are common and unwinnable without evidence.

On the day you receive keys, before moving anything in:

• Photograph every room, wall, floor, and ceiling. Timestamped. Including the things that seem fine.
• Photograph the meters. Electricity, gas, and water readings at handover. These are your baseline for the utility transfer and for disputing any prior consumption billed to you.
• Test everything that runs. Every tap, the water pressure at the highest fixture, every socket, the extractor, the boiler or calentador, every window and lock, and the intercom.
• Photograph damp-prone areas specifically. Under sinks, around window frames, behind the washing machine, the ceiling in the top-floor corner. Filtración is the most common defect in this climate and the most disputed.
• Inventory what was supposed to convey. Appliances, fitted furniture, curtains, air conditioning units, and the parking space and storage locker. Confirm the parking bay number matches the one in the escritura, because mismatches are more common than they should be.
• Count the keys. Unit keys, building fob, mailbox, storage, parking remote. Ask directly whether any previous tenant or employee retains a copy, and change the lock if the answer is vague.

The transfers: utilities, building, and tax

The practical prerequisite for most of this is a local bank account, and the prerequisite for that is usually a cédula. If neither is in place yet, read opening a Colombian bank account and the cédula guide, and in the meantime arrange for a manager or attorney to cover payments so nothing lapses while you sort it out.

Get onto the building's information flow

You now own a share of a propiedad horizontal, and the building's decisions will affect your costs and your rental options directly. Within the first weeks:

1. Get a copy of the reglamento de propiedad horizontal if you do not already have one from due diligence. It governs what you can do with your unit, including whether short stays are permitted.
2. Ask for the last two years of asamblea minutes and the current budget. You want to know about pending cuotas extraordinarias, reserve fund health, and any rental-restriction votes on the horizon. Our short-term rental article covers why that last one matters.
3. Register your contact details properly with the administración, including an email you actually read. Asamblea notices are sent formally and missing one means losing your vote.
4. Introduce yourself to the administrador and the portería. Unglamorous and genuinely valuable, especially for absentee owners. These are the people who will call you when there is water coming through your ceiling.
5. Find out when the annual asamblea is held and plan to attend or grant a proxy. Decisions get made whether or not you participate.

Confirm the money side is closed properly

Two loose ends that are easy to leave dangling and painful to reopen:

• Your foreign-investment registration. If your purchase funds entered through the exchange-market channel, confirm the registration with Banco de la República is complete and correctly reflects the amount and your name. This is what permits clean repatriation when you eventually sell, and it is much easier to correct now than in five years. See wiring money to Colombia and selling and repatriation.
• Your document set, stored somewhere you can reach from abroad. Escritura, registered certificado de tradición, paz y salvo, handover photos, foreign-investment registration, purchase invoices and any improvement receipts. That last category matters more than people realise: documented improvements increase your adjusted fiscal cost and reduce capital gains tax on exit. Start the folder on day one, because reconstructing receipts six years later is not realistic.

A realistic 60-day shape

Bottom line

The first sixty days are unglamorous and they set up everything that follows. Confirm the registration actually happened. Document the handover before you touch anything. Get the paz y salvo. Move the utilities. Get onto the building's contact list. Build the document folder while the documents still exist.

None of it is difficult. All of it is much harder to do retroactively, and two of the items on this list are the ones that decide what your eventual sale looks like.