The verification seal
Most real estate problems in the Dominican Republic do not come from brilliant crooks. They come from incomplete files nobody read. This is what gets asked for, where it is checked, and what it costs.
1. Certificate of Title. Who owns it, according to the Registry. Not according to the seller.
2. Legal status certificate. Whether there are mortgages, liens or pending lawsuits. Anyone can request it, it costs under US$20, and it is the one almost nobody asks for. Here is how to do it yourself.
3. Survey (deslinde). That the land is individualised and its boundaries recorded. Without it you are buying a share of something, not a specific thing.
4. CONFOTUR resolution, if it is claimed. The PDF with its number. If they cannot show it, the project does not have it — whatever the brochure says.
5. Trust agreement, in pre-construction. Which regulated trust company holds the money and under what estate number. If the money goes to a personal account, the conversation ends there.
6. Purchase agreement with the late-delivery penalties. If the contract does not say what happens when delivery is late, that silence is not an oversight.
I sell property for a living and I am showing you how to audit the people who sell it to you, me included. It is on purpose. If a file cannot survive being checked, it should not be sold — and you should not have to take anyone's word for it, mine least of all.
Nothing. The developer or the seller pays my commission. You pay the same list price with me or without me; the difference is that the file was reviewed before you put a peso in.