The saying in Costa Rica is “Pura Vida”, strictly translated it means Pure Life. You can use it for everything; “Hello”, to “Good-bye”, to “It’s all good, even if it isn’t”. It’s Costa Rica’s answer to “Aloha” or “Hang Loose” and it’s not just a saying, it’s a way of life. It reflects the Central American country’s laid-back attitude towards time and all the pressure it entails.
Selling our house in Austin and buying two condos in Costa Rica presented a challenge with timing, transferring money, and signing paperwork. Everything had to work one after another for the delicate balancing act to result in us closing one property out and acquiring the others. If it didn’t work just right we’d be homeless until we figured it out, but at least we’d be homeless by the beach.
Pura Vida.
Me: Hey, can you check with Theo (our real estate agent in Coco) and see what happens if we close on our house a little later here. Can we reschedule the closing there? Does that mess everything up?
A few minutes later.
Don: Theo says we can close when we get there, and the money is in.
Me: What does that even mean?
Don: (translating American stress to Pura Vida) We close when we close?
Me: When is that?
Don: When we get there?
As we trekked across the USA, confused dogs in tow, we arranged to move right into the condo we were buying even though we wouldn’t close on the condos until after we arrived.
Theo: The owners say it’s no problem. When you get there, they’ll let you in.
True to their word they met us, key in hand, in the pouring rain and we unloaded all our soaked and bedraggled belongings into the condo. We dried off, unpacked, and collapsed onto our inherited sofa. We made it.
The next morning, we saw the condo owners, they are also our downstairs neighbors.
Antoinette: Good morning, how are you doing? Getting settled in?
Me: Yes, we’re good thanks!
Antoinette: Wonderful, so we’ll see you at the closing at 11 then?
Me: Today? (checking my watch to see it’s 10) Um, yeah, sure, where?
Antoinette: At the attorney’s office.
Me: (acting cool, like I totally understand where that it). Sounds great.
We climb the stairs to our condo and I see Don texting Theo who says he’ll drive by our place so we can follow him to the closing, because, as we’ll soon find out, addresses aren’t a thing here.
We made it to the attorney’s place in plenty of time and got a seat at a huge rectangle-shaped table. Within a few minutes, the table filled up. It’s us, our agent Theo (who is Canadian), our lawyer (who is from San Jose), the sellers (who are French Canadian), their attorney, (who is Costa Rican), and their real estate agent (who is Italian and owns an amazing restaurant just down the street from the condos). It’s quite an international group.
There’s friendly chit-chat for a few minutes in three languages, then the closing document circulates around the table. Yes, I said that right, the document, one document. All eight people, one by one, look over the paper, nodding. A couple of notes are noted and Don and I sign the bottom of the page and pass it back to our attorney.
That’s it.
Our attorney explains that there’s some filing she has to do with the LLC that we used to buy the property and in a few weeks all the finalized paperwork will be dropped off to us. We sent the funds for the purchase by wire transfer before we left Texas and of the myriad of things that could do wrong, nothing did. Money has properly changed accounts; the document has been signed.
We stand up, shake hands with everyone, and leave.
Me: That was weird, right?
Don: Yeah, so many people, so little paperwork.
We’ve purchased lots of homes in the US, most with financing, some cash, and we’ve always left the closing with a reem of paperwork, signed and stamped in triplicate. We didn’t even walk out of this closing with one piece of paper.
Me: But we bought the condos, right?
Don: I’m pretty sure.
Pura Vida!
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