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Here’s my translation of the new legislation.
Article 58
To obtain permanent residency status in the country, foreigners must comply with the following requirements:
a) Application (i.e. letter) from the interested party, directed to the Director General of Immigration, presented in the offices of the Consulate of Costa Rica in their country of origin or residency.
b) This letter must designate a proxy*, who must be a resident in Costa Rica, indicate the reasons or motives why the applicant wished to reside permanently in the country, and list a house or office within the judicial perimeter of San Jose**, where communications can be received. Applications that do not comply with this requirement will not be accepted.
c) Bring your birth certificate, certificate of criminal history, marriage certificate (if the applicant is married), and academic and or trade diplomas. The birth certificate must contain the names of the parents.
d) Certified copy of your passport including all its pages.
e) Bring birth certificates for all minor children who are included in your application.
f) Bring four recent frontal photos, passport-size.
Article 59 – All required documents must come duly authenticated by the respective Costa Rican consulate authority, and the documents that have not been emitted in Spanish must be accompanied by the corresponding translation in this language.
Article 58 “Bis” also provides indications for exceptional cases when it is impossible to provide a criminal history certificate or a birth certificate which includes the names of the parents.
*”Apoderado” generally means “proxy”, but it may also mean someone with a Power of Attorney to act on your behalf. I don’t think you need to hire someone to gather and properly present your documents to the CR Consulate in the US, but as others have suggested, it may be wise to have a CR attorney handle the process once the application is made. This attorney can act as your Power of Attorney, or your proxy, as well as your Notary Public.
**I believe the “judicial perimeter of San Jose” means the San Jose City limits.
As you can see, even a good translation does not answer all questions. As such, call your respective CR Consulate. By now they probably have the new requirements in English that they can fax you. Also, chose your legal representative in CR and follow his/her directions.
There is also the question of what it means to be “certified”. I thought birth certificates come certified if you request it (with the raised impression). I also think your local police department can “certify” your police record. Certified copy of your passport? That’s a new one.
Finally, the legislation requires translations of each document, but doesn’t indicate whether the translation needs to be correct (i.e. by a “licenced” translator, whatever that means). This begs the question – are there other administrative requirements or “definitions” emitted by the CR Dept. of Immigration to facilitate this new legislation?
Again – call your consulate, or speak to a CR attorney.
If Costa Rica is anything like Italy, you must have a “certified” person do the translations — it can’t be your next door neighbor or a friend who speaks the language. That’s why the Consulate is usually the one who does the translations, unless you enlist the services of someone who does this all the time. As for birth certificates, they probably are automatically certified when you request this document, but I still had to state in the letter to the Vital Statistics that I wanted it certified. I can’t remember the procedure for getting the passport pages certified — it could well have been the attorney’s notary who did it in San Jose — the one to whom I gave a poder to act on my behalf re immigration.
I am a US citizen, however, I was born in Spain (fluent in Spanish), my mother is Argentine, her parents were Spaniards and my father was American. I am in the process of trying to obtain Spanish citizenship. If successful, does this not grant me the ability to get CR citenship as I have read in Roger Peterson’s book?
Certified is most likely referring to having the CR consulate in your area affixing stamps and notification of authenticity. That is what is usually meant by certified. It’s a way for the consulate to make money (around $40 a pop I think) and a first line of protection against obvious fraudulent documents.
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