REAL ESTATE GUIDES
Real estate guides serve to advise you in the matters of dealing with real property in Latvia. When foreign investors come to Latvia to do business or immigrate, they usually find themselves in need of premises for various reasons. Residence, offices, retail space and legal company headquarters are the most demanded products on the Latvian property market. Consequently, these guides are designed for anyone, who plans to stay or maintain legal presence in Latvia for any length of time. We provide answers to the following questions:
how to purchase property abroad?
where to find the best apartments in Riga?
what are the options for cheap property in Latvia?
how to become an owner of an EU property?
what is the best real estate for sale in Latvia?
many other questions
The guides, which this article links to, are step-by-step instructions on how to buy, sell, find, assess, rent, lease or build real property in Latvia.
Finding real property
Finding real estate in Latvia starts with defining your goals and aim concerning that property. Here is a list of most common uses for property:
residence
legal presence (including a legal address required to register any company in Latvia)
retail premises
office space
TRP (Temporary residence permit) acquisition through real estate purchase
The aim determines what sources of information you are going to use in order to find real estate. In general, message boards are most suitable for those, who are looking for cheaper, low-quality (there are exceptions, of course) premises or premises for a short-term stay. This is primarily due to these websites being filled with old and damaged apartaments - searching for good options there is time-inefficient. More serious options, especially the ones related to incorporating in Latvia, require qualified assistance from local real estate and legal support companies. Sometimes this also applies to establishing contacts with local retail space providers, e.g. shopping centres.
For general information about various pieces of real property, one can use government data portals, where it is possible to view certain legal information about any type of property, be it a building or land. You may also want to contact real estate agencies in order to order a valuation or property assessment. This will help you determine of a specific property is priced reasonably and does not include any unwanted encumbrances or any other problems that are not apparent at the first sight.
Buying real property
When you have found a suitable piece of real estate, you can proceed to buying it. This is a two-stage process, consisting of financing the operation and finalizing the transaction.
Unless you possess personal funds that are sufficient to cover all the costs, an external source of financing your real estate purchase is needed. For this, there are two main sources - bank and non-bank real estate credits, also known as mortgage. You are, of course, free to choose any of these two, but, if you are a foreigner applying for a credit in a Latvian credit institution, it is essential to consult a local finance management agency. This is due to the fact, that, naturally, crediting systems of different countries are also different. Such consultations will protect you from mistakes, which may arise because of the lack of experience with the local crediting system.
The other part of the real estate buying operation is related to legal questions: preparing and signing necessary documents, paying government fees and registering with the relevant authorities. The documents in question include not only the transaction agreement, but also a number of documents to be submitted to authorities, such as the so-called 'Application of attestation' (nostiprinājuma lūgums). Once again, it is a lot easier to perform all the operations through a single local real estate assistance firm, which would guarantee the uniformity of all the acts, as well as aid you with the process of payment.
https://propertyguide.lv/en/real-estate/