The short answer
Someone who occupies land openly, peacefully and without interruption for more than a year gains possession rights, and after that the owner has to go to court to recover it. Before then, or where the person was only tolerated on the land, the owner can ask the authorities for an eviction. Absentee owners protect themselves by having the land watched.
The one-year line
Costa Rican law protects possession. Once a person has been on a property for more than a year in an open, stable, peaceful and uninterrupted way, they hold possession rights. The owner's remedies are then a civil lawsuit to recover possession or a criminal complaint for trespass. Both take time.
You cannot remove someone by force
The Civil Code does not allow possession to be taken violently, even by the rightful owner, while the occupant objects. Changing locks, tearing down a shack or hiring people to push occupants out can put the owner on the wrong side of the law.
Tolerated occupants are different
A person who is on the land because the owner allowed it, such as a caretaker or a neighbour grazing cattle, does not gain rights over the property from that tolerance. In those cases the owner can start an administrative eviction with the police.
This is why any arrangement should be in writing. A signed agreement proves the person is there with permission.
How absentee owners protect a lot
Most problems come from land nobody visits. The usual precautions:
- Have someone you trust walk the land every few months
- Put any caretaker arrangement in writing
- Keep the boundaries marked and fenced where practical
- Pay the property tax every year and keep the receipts
- Know the neighbours, who are the first to notice a stranger
- Act immediately if anyone moves in
Before you buy
Walk the whole lot or have someone do it for you. Crops, a path that is clearly in use, animals or a small structure all mean someone is using the land, and that has to be resolved before you close, not after.
Questions buyers ask
Possession rights begin after a year of open occupation. Acquiring ownership through possession takes far longer under the Civil Code and has further conditions, but an owner should never let it get that far.