BestFSBOGuide.com team
Martin Gimenez
Argentina contributor
Covers the seller's side of Argentine property deals from primary sources, where the escribano publico and the public deed (escritura publica) decide when a sale is actually real. The desk follows the gap between a signed boleto de compraventa and the transferring escritura, the libre deuda certificates that must clear before closing, and the run of tax changes since 2024 that retired the ITI, dropped the COTI reporting code, and exempted resident home-sale gains from 2026.
A common assumption in Argentina is that a deal is done the moment the buyer hands over the sena and the boleto gets signed. It isn’t. Nothing transfers until the escritura is read and signed in front of the escribano, and that distinction is worth making clearly: the boleto commits the parties, but it does not move the property.
The risks that derail closings tend to be unglamorous. A libre deuda certificate nobody chased until the week before. An old court restriction sitting quietly against the seller’s name, waiting for the escribano’s inhibicion search to find it. Expensas in arrears on an apartment. None of it is dramatic, but each one costs a closing date when left late, which is why the practical advice almost always comes down to starting the certificates the day a sale is decided, not the week a buyer turns up.
Then there is the tax picture, which in Argentina has refused to sit still: the ITI gone in 2024, the COTI dropped in 2025, the gain on a resident’s home sale exempt from the start of 2026. The rule of thumb is simple. Whatever figure last year’s guide quotes, it should be checked again with an escribano and a contador before being passed to a buyer, because the ground keeps moving.
Areas of focus
- Tracks the Civil and Commercial Code rules on real property transfer and provincial stamp tax
- Follows the escribano's role, libre deuda and inhibicion searches, and the boleto-to-escritura sequence
- Monitors Argentine property-tax changes affecting sellers (ITI, COTI, resident gain exemption)
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