Chile Forum

Just in case somebody has had any experience buying pre-owned apartments in Chile: is the procedure of checking the title the same as with land? Are all apartments registered with Conservador de Bienes Raices? Also, I'd be thankful for a quick explanation of what cello rojo is. Thanks!

Mas o menos the same basic principles of a title search apply. There are some differences related to the various community laws that govern the building / condo association, and also more than likly the title search will involve checking at least one corporation's charter at some point in the history. You also want to make sure any condo association / gastos fees are paid. There are some specific things to watch out for with apartments, just like there are some things related to single family homes, rural agricultural property, and so on. Every type of property has its own special set of issues.

The red-seal bit interests me. Can anyone explain it?

The only thing my wife and I could think of that the cello rojo could be is the yearly gas inspection of the apartment building. A red seal is bad… and I think all it takes in one apartment to fail for the entire building to fail and if the building fails… no gas for you.

I can’t tell you for sure if there only has to be one bad apartment or not because the building we lived in pasted both the inspections when we were there. They usual display the gas inspection results on the front door of the building. Generally it isn’t something wrong with the building that will cause fail… it is usually someone changed the location of their gas shut off valve and it can’t be easily access... should be in most cases a quick fix, but it would still be a pain not to have gas.

If there is a different cello rojo and this isn’t the one that you wanted to know about… sorry. But it is the only thing we could think of that the term would apply too.

Cello Rojo is most likely related to the gas in the Apartment as explained my J.Ro..

And that designation can happen anytime after purchase and be a nightmare to deal with. Take for example the 300 families that have lived without hot water in the edificio I moved from in Santiago two and a half years ago (add to that the three or so months I lived w/o hot water before moving).

Thank you all for your responses! Much appreciated. And sorry for the misspelling, it is "sello rojo," of course.

yea, I believe that is gas related.

Ahhh no hot water!.. was lucky enough to experience it on my last stay in Stgo.. Staying at an apartment near St Lucia we were left w/o hot water for the week!.. that was fun .. although it would have been worse if it was winter!