The word did the selling. Beachfront. Toes-in-the-sand, walk-out-your-gate, watch-the-surf-from-bed beachfront.
The price, for what it appeared to be, looked almost suspiciously fair. The buyers — sharp people, multiple past transactions in the States — were three days from wiring a deposit when their attorney came back with a sentence none of them expected:
“You wouldn’t be buying this land. You’d be leasing it from the municipality.”
Costa Rica’s coast has a rule almost no foreign buyer arrives knowing. The first 200 meters from the high-tide line is the Maritime Zone: the first 50 are public — nobody owns the sand — and the next 150 are typically concession land, leased from the municipality for renewable terms, with rules about foreign ownership shares and renewal conditions.
Most of what is marketed as “beachfront” on this coast is not titled land. It’s a lease with a view.
Concession property isn’t a scam, and it isn’t a dealbreaker — some of the most valuable property in the country sits on concessions held for generations. But it is a fundamentally different purchase: different diligence, different structuring, different financing, different questions about what happens at renewal.
The sellers hadn’t hidden anything. The listing simply used the word everyone uses, and assumed the buyer would learn the rest eventually. Eventually almost arrived three days after the wire.
These buyers chose differently: a titled lot one row back, ninety seconds from the sand, fee-simple, no renewal calendar. They drink coffee on the beach every morning. The beach, after all, is public — that’s the whole point of the law.
Most “beachfront” on this coast is not titled land. It’s a lease with a view.
The Story Timeline
The Cost
Lessons For Future Buyers
Insider Perspective
The maritime zone surprises more foreign buyers than any other rule in Costa Rica. We raise it in the first conversation with every beach-focused client — because the right answer differs by buyer, but it must be an informed answer.
Where They Are Now
Their attorney's fee for the deal that died remains, they say, the best money they spent on the entire move.
Considering Playa Grande? You can read the unfiltered local take on this area, or talk it through with us before you fall in love with anything.
