Case Reviews: Spotting the Usual Mistakes in Residency Applications

Here at Outlier Legal Services, we receive numerous calls from expats whom have handled the residency process on their own or perhaps have hired help from someone in the community and find themselves stuck in a years-long process that become too cumbersome and stressful to handle.

The service of requesting a copy of your file or expediente from Immigration is what we call a case review. It entails getting a copy of the file, having an attorney go page by page analyzing the application, spotting any sort of mistake, and providing the client with a final report of our findings.

We thought it would be useful to provide a summary of what we have identified as common mistakes in the numerous files we check every month.

One of the most common mistakes is filing expired documents. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, background checks, and other official documents which are filed after more than 6 months of their issuance will be automatically deemed expired.

Documents may also be incorrectly apostilled or incompletely legalized. For example, Canadian documents go through a long chain of legalization which entails certification in Canada, going through the Costa Rican Consulate and then, once in Costa Rica, going through our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many expats skip the latter stage of legalization, thus ruining the entire process as the document will not be legalized if the chain was not entirely nor properly followed.

We have seen birth certificates lacking the parents’ names which is a red flag for Immigration as is people who file local background checks instead of federal checks. It is not rare to see documents lacking the Spanish translation that has been done by a translator recognized by the Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In addition, people tend to make mistakes when paying the application fees. They either pay incorrect amounts or do not complete payments under the applicant’s name.

Application letters are often unclear or mix up immigration categories. Moreover, people sometimes include their partners as dependents even though they do not have a legal document, such as a marriage certificate, showing that they are related.

Another frequent error is not providing Immigration with the fingerprint receipt issued by our local police. Consular registrations also tend to be lacking in the vast majority of files we have seen.

One last item that is often a problem is that passport copies often show an expired entry stamp which is not the right way to start the application process as you are expected to have legal status when filing your application. However, if the applicant had no choice but to overstay, there is a penalty per month to be paid. Many times, if there was an overstay, this penalty has not been paid.

While the above are common, the most common mistakes, per category, are:

Residency as parent of a Costa Rican citizen: The Costa Rican child´s Costa Rican birth certificate is sometimes missing.

Residency through marriage: Either the Costa Rican marriage certificate is not filed, or applicants forget that the couple is obliged to attend an interview at Immigration with a social worker who asks a series of questions designed to verify the veracity of the marriage. Aside from answering correctly (we have a list of frequently asked questions), the couple is also expected to file photos of their life as a couple, with their families, friends, etc.

Rentista: The bank letter is generally incorrect as the language used is not what the Immigration Department demands. The language needs to be exactly as Immigration requests, per article 82 of the General Law of Immigration.

Pensionado: The pension letter does not say that the applicant receives a lifetime monthly pension of X amount, where X equals to or is greater than $1000 USD. Additionally, the pension letter may not be signed, notarized, and/or apostilled, hence, making it unsuitable per Immigration’s standards.

Investor: This is probably one of the most complicated categories and where the worst mistakes have been identified. In many cases, the investment was set up incorrectly. For example, the purchase deed may state a lower purchase price in an effort to pay lower taxes. In such a case, and even if the applicant did pay at least $200,000, if the paperwork for the purchase was not correctly completed, the applicant would not be eligible for the Investor category. On many occasions, the document from the local municipality stating the value of the property has not been filed, nor has the the proof of payment of luxury taxes been filed when applicable. For this category we have seen people add unnecessary documents such as CPAs or deeds showing mortgages for the $200,000, which end up confusing the Immigration Department rather than speeding the process along.

As you can see, there are a lot of details to be taken into consideration when applying for residency.

Fear not, however. Our findings report always summarize what we have identified as mistakes in the file and includes a list of next steps to correct what has been incorrectly submitted. There may be cases, such as one case we recently reviewed, where the suggestion is to completely start over. In this particular case, the previous attorney had received an exigency from the Immigration Department asking for a series of documents to be filed in a 10-business day period. The attorney received the exigency back in 2017 and never filed what had been requested. Now, well over two years after the exigency was issued, there is little we can do to rectify such a problem.

Filing and completing applications correctly will reduce the stress that an immigration process entails. Whilst processes in Costa Rica are extremely lengthy and complicated, if a file is properly handled and the applicant meets all the eligibility criteria, residency is almost always guaranteed.

Doing things right from the very beginning will save applicants unnecessary delays and expenses. We are here to help you and take the burden off your shoulders.