Your money doesn’t move until the Registry moves.
The hardest moment of buying from abroad is the transfer: your money leaves your account before anything is in your name. Escrow closes that gap, and an independent escrow agent holds the money.
Paying and owning are not the same day
In a normal Salvadoran purchase the money changes hands at signing — cashier’s cheque or transfer, across the notary’s table. Registration at the CNR happens afterwards, and it takes weeks. In between, you have paid and you are not yet the owner.
What usually happens
The buyer pays on the day of signing and waits.
- Funds released against a signature
- Registration still pending, for weeks
- A lien can still surface in that window
- If something fails, the money is already gone
What happens instead
The money sits with an independent third party and moves only when conditions are met.
- Funds held outside both parties’ reach
- Each release tied to a verified condition
- The last tranche waits for CNR inscription
- If a condition fails, the money comes back
We never hold your money
Your funds are held by an independent escrow agent: a qualified third party that we vet before it takes part in your purchase. We write the conditions and verify each one; the escrow agent holds the money and releases it only when they are met.
The six steps →- An independent escrow agentThe route we use by default: a qualified third party we vet before it takes part in your purchase.
- A bank escrow accountWhen the deal calls for it: the bank holds and releases against the written instructions.
- A bank trust — fideicomisoMore structure and more formality. By law only a bank or authorised credit institution can act as fiduciary in El Salvador. Escrow or fideicomiso, side by side →
- An attorney’s escrow accountUnder a written escrow agreement, with the attorney answerable for it. Used at moderate amounts.
- Never ownelsalvador.comWe write the conditions, verify them and instruct the release. The money is somewhere we cannot reach.
- Current registry certificate, clean of liens
- Chain of title verified without gaps
- Seller identity and capacity confirmed
- Powers of attorney verified and in force
- Municipal and utility clearances obtained
- Boundaries matched to the registered plan
- Promise of sale signed with these conditions in it
- Deed drafted, reviewed and authorised
- Transfer tax and registry duties paid, receipts filed
- Inscription confirmed at the CNR in your name
The escrow is only as good as its conditions
Those conditions are not invented for the occasion: they come from the fifteen checks of our property file, turned into release triggers. The verification and the escrow are the same work, which is why they belong together.
The final release is tied to one event and one only: the CNR recording the transfer in your name. Until that happens the seller does not see the balance.
Two costs, and neither is hidden
Drafting the escrow agreement, defining the release conditions, checking each one against evidence, and instructing the release.
- Escrow agreement drafted to the transaction
- Release conditions tied to the property file
- Each condition verified against a document
- Written instruction at each release
- Follow-through to CNR inscription
Whoever holds the funds charges for holding them. We negotiate it, disclose it and pass it through without a markup.
- Quoted before you agree to anything
- Depends on the amount and the holder
- Shown as its own line on your estimate
- Never marked up by us
Figures marked * are estimates, not quotations — they move with the amount, the holder and the complexity of the transaction, and each one is confirmed in writing before anything starts. They are references for the San Salvador metropolitan area: outside it, municipal filings take longer and are quoted case by case. Transfer tax, registry duties and the attorney’s own fees are separate and are itemized on your closing estimate.
The questions people actually ask
Yes. El Salvador has no specific escrow licence: escrow here is an atypical contract, built on freedom of contract and assimilated to the deposit contract of the Civil and Commercial Codes. It exists, it is enforceable, and there are independent escrow agents — we work with one we have vetted. It is still not standard practice the way it is in the United States, which is why most purchases go without one.
No. If a bank is financing the purchase, the bank runs the closing and appoints its own notary — we don’t operate there. Our work is for cash purchases. The property file still helps: it is worth knowing what you are buying before the bank starts its own process.
Yes, and it is better to know in advance. Every sale above $10,000 is reported to the Financial Investigation Unit of the Attorney General’s office and to the Supreme Court. The notary files it — it is their obligation, and failing to do so can cost them their licence. That is why the file covers source of funds: it is not our paperwork, it is the country’s requirement.
Before you wire anything, get the estimate
Send us the property and we come back within 48 hours with every cost of the transaction and how the funds would be structured — who would hold them, and what each release would depend on. Free, and yours to keep.
Get a Free Closing Estimate →