Buying land in Nicaragua as a foreigner: the steps at Las Planadas
One question comes before every other one we get on WhatsApp: can a foreigner really own land here? The answer is yes, and the path is the same for everyone. At Las Planadas de Escamequita, near San Juan del Sur, buying a lot is a short, ordinary sequence: you choose the lot, you reserve it, the lawyer prepares the escritura, and you sign at the lawyer's office. Here is what each step actually means.
Yes, a foreigner can buy, and the title is a public deed
Buying land in Nicaragua as a foreigner is well established, and at Las Planadas it ends the same way it ends for a Nicaraguan buyer: with a public deed, the escritura, 100% in your name and registered. That document is the title. It is not a lease, not a share in a company you have to maintain, not a promise on paper from a seller.
The person who makes it exist is the lawyer. The lawyer tells you which documents are needed in your situation and prepares the escritura. We do not publish a document checklist here, because the list is the lawyer's job and it depends on each buyer; what matters for you is that you will be told exactly what to bring before anything is signed.
Step one: choose the lot
Las Planadas has 57 lots in total, and 31 available lots today. The others are sold, reserved or already built on, like Villa Mariposa, the house our team built inside the project and which is not for sale.
Lots run from 800 to 1,190 m². The list price is $39/m², and $49/m² for the lots on the main road, with −10% on every lot, which puts entry prices from $28,080. If you take lots that touch each other, the largest keeps −10% and the others go to −15%.
Location is part of the choice too: by car it is 3 min to Playa Yankee, 5 min to Playa Hermosa, 7 min to Playa Remanso and 15 min to San Juan del Sur, while Escamequita village is a short walk away, with its school, cafés, restaurants, bar, karaoke night, pizza night, pulperías, equestrian centre with horse rides to the beach, pickleball, football and baseball fields and a health centre.
Step two: reserve it
A lot is only yours once it is off the market. At Las Planadas the reservation is $1,000 per lot, and from that moment the lot stops being offered to anyone else while the paperwork is prepared.
It starts with a message: write to us on WhatsApp with the lot number you want. Nothing is decided in a rush, and you will have the numbers for that exact lot — surface, price, and, if you want it, the payment plan — before you commit to anything.
Step three: the lawyer prepares the escritura
Once the lot is reserved, the file goes to the lawyer. The lawyer indicates the documents needed and prepares the escritura. That is the part people from abroad worry about most, and it is in fact the most routine part of the whole process when the land is already surveyed, already divided into numbered lots and already sold to other owners around you.
Las Planadas is not raw land being carved up for the first time. Lots have been sold here, houses have been built here, and the access roads, the drainage and the gated entrance are maintained as common infrastructure. The lot you reserve is a defined parcel with a number, not an approximate corner of a field.
Step four: signing at the lawyer's office
The escritura is signed at the lawyer's office. That is the moment the land becomes yours: the deed is 100% in your name and registered.
If you are paying over time, the payment plan is confirmed in writing before signing, so nothing about the amounts or the schedule is left to memory or to goodwill. You should leave that office knowing exactly what you own and exactly what, if anything, you still owe.
Paying cash, or with owner financing
Some buyers pay in full. Others prefer beach land Nicaragua owner financing, directly with us, without a bank in the middle:
- Financing from $650/month
- 9% fixed per year
- Flexible, with no penalty for paying early
- The payment plan confirmed in writing before signing
- Reservation of $1,000 per lot to take it off the market
After the signature
Owning the lot comes with a small, predictable set of facts rather than surprises. The community fee is 5 córdobas per m² per year, for the roads and the common areas, and the practical side is already in place:
- Water and electricity connection available
- Roads and drainage kept up
- Gated entrance
- Fertile soil, the same as the neighbouring finca
- A future fresh-produce store planned in the project
- Building help, if you wish: we can build the house turnkey, like Villa Mariposa, or put you in touch with contractors and every trade
Buying from the other side of the world
Most people who look at lots for sale in Nicaragua start from abroad, and that is fine. Jesús lives on site: he can walk the lot with you in person, or take you around on a video call, answer where the sun sets, where the neighbours are and how the road behaves.
If you would rather see it with your own feet first, the four houses of the finca next door rent on Airbnb, rated 4.86 — the simplest way to sleep here a few nights and visit the land for sale San Juan del Sur buyers keep asking about, on the same trip.
Tell us which lot interests you, or simply tell us what you are looking for, and we will take it from there. Write to us on WhatsApp.
