Buying Property: Transfer Funds From/to Foreign Accounts?

[moomin]

Hello,

Would appreciate it if anyone who has experience of buying property in Capital Federal and transferring the funds from a foreign bank account to another foreign bank account could share their experience/advice. Is this still fully legit? What paperwork has to be done for Argentine officials for this situation and what taxes and fees are paid in Argentina in this case?
Buyers are non-national residents; one of the sellers is Argentine but non-resident.

Many thanks.

 

[mariano-BCN]

mmh, interesting topic, I'm looking for a place to buy too.

 

[Ries]

You need to hire a lawyer and an Escribano.
Its a complicated process here, and it changes all the time. Its well worth it to hire professionals.

 

[jessedurr]

I just went through this process with property in Bariloche and would be happy to talk to you about it if you would like. If so, how would you like to contact? sms?

 

[RichardP]

Would it be too much to ask to share that info publicly on this thread? Several people would be curious to know the latest info on this subject.

 

[nlaruccia]

I've never bought property here but two Mexican clients of a friend of mine invested in five apartments here. They reside in Mexico and travel here on vacation. After ten years or so they decided to sell them one by one, and couldn't get the money out of Argentina. They lost a lot of money and time trying to get it out. I had though about buying an apartment here, but after hearing their experience I would think twice about it.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Hello,

Would appreciate it if anyone who has experience of buying property in Capital Federal and transferring the funds from a foreign bank account to another foreign bank account could share their experience/advice. Is this still fully legit? What paperwork has to be done for Argentine officials for this situation and what taxes and fees are paid in Argentina in this case?
Buyers are non-national residents; one of the sellers is Argentine but non-resident.

Many thanks.

I'm glad we did it in 2002.

 

[lucha54]

I've never bought property here but two Mexican clients of a friend of mine invested in five apartments here. They reside in Mexico and travel here on vacation. After ten years or so they decided to sell them one by one, and couldn't get the money out of Argentina. They lost a lot of money and time trying to get it out. I had though about buying an apartment here, but after hearing their experience I would think twice about it.

Interesting, I thought that might be a problem... mariposa was able to sell her house successfully, might try finding her on here to ask if she'll share the details. It was just this year that she did it.

 

[garryl]

Well, I can shared my experience, and please tell me if this is legit.
I did the risky thing because a crazy American woman told
me that she did the same way. Transfer $ to a cambio house (a local small bank). The process was:

1)wire certain amount to a Hong Kong bank account, this is really the account
opened by the cambio bank in centro bsas.

2)in the memo section, I put my name there, this is does not mean much because
the $ directly went into someone else account that I have ZERO idea.
(before this, I did one trial, wired $1000, the money arrived in 2-3 days, I proceeded
with the larger amount, then it took 4-5 days)

3)The $ was wired from US to HK. Once the $ is in cambio bank's HK
account, they acknowledged it, thank God. And you can take it from their BsAs centro
branch. This process is done by word of mouth, if they F*ed it up, the news will travel
fast to all the small business owners who use the same flow to move $ from Brasil to AR. So unless you are
the last person before they decide to close their business, they will honor your transfer.

4)I then I borrowed their cambio house conference room as the place to meet the
real estate seller, we conducted the business there. It took a long time for the dollars
to show up on that day, in a cart, piled up on top, it was like a continental breakfast made
of thousands of green notes. The seller was more nervous than me, he probably
has never seen this much dollars in front of his eyes that he can play with, neither did I. His relatives all jumped on
and started to count the dineros. Of course, the bank charged me a few percent for it.
I forgot how much. This is not a tiny bank, they have one person dedicated to make sure
their flow is within the Argentina banking law.

The other interesting thing was that I peeked into their operation room, I have never
seen so many good looking, and sharp looking professionals in that room behind
the big computer screens, it's like a US hedge fund office, except that they are better
looking than the nerdy US stock traders. These people probably
get paid well if they can charge 20+ times more than Bank of America for one lousy
transfer/wiring. That was the business to be, moving $ in and out legally, kinda.

Anyway, I have all the docs to show that I got money from this legally operated bank
in BsAs, but some people still say I did the blue way, WTF!! All the people I knew
bought apartment this way. You tell me if this is legit, thank you.

 

[syngirl]

Anyway, I have all the docs to show that I got money from this legally operated bank
in BsAs, but some people still say I did the blue way, WTF!! All the people I knew
bought apartment this way. You tell me if this is legit, thank you.

They say you did it blue way because your money wasn't wired directly from your account abroad, so it didn't go through the Central Bank. The problem is that if you ever sell and want your money back out of the country the AFIP will want to see that money came here legitimately, and if you're still a non-resident when you sell, forget about it, you'll eat loads in taxes, significantly more than a resident, making it worthwhile to get your DNI before trying to sell. I don't know from your story if you can demonstrate that the money used was yours or not (ie you say the docs show you got the money from the bank, but will AFIP decide that's enough or will they want to trace further back?), and where was the origin of funds (ie you're not from HK, you weren't working here, how is it that the money turned up here magically -- the AFIP may want to know because they want their share of it in taxes). It is a common practice, yes, the problem is that in the past few years the AFIP has become much more strict about fining people upon the sale of the property if they decide they don't like how you got the money in the first place.