TITULOS PRIVILEGIADOS DE COBRO EN COSTA RICA:

In the civil procedure in Costa Rica, it is of great importance the debt collection that is made trough the judges and civil process. This constitutes the most of the work of our civil judges, to attend all the processes that daily are made trough them to collect debts.
It is for this reason that in the Code of Civil Procedure, that rules this matter, is created a procedure shorter and easier than the ordinary, to collect debts. But, to collect the debts in this fast procedure, they must be guarantee by an executive title. This is, a special document that the law confires the privilegee of being collected in this way.
The 438 article in the Code of Civil Procedure tells us wich ones are the executive titles in Costa Rica: The testimony of a public scripture, done before a Notary Public, entry certification of the Public Registry, private documents recognized before a judge, judicial confession, judicial resolutions, and the documents that have that property of being executive titles given by special laws.
The last ones are of great importance, because they are the titled guarantee for debts, they make the debt come to an existence and besides they give the guarantee of, if the debt is not paid in a normal way, the creditor can go before a judge to make the executive title valid and make the debtor to pay, confiscating his goods, bank accounts, etc.
The principal executive titles in Costa Rica are: the draft (¿bill of exchange?), EL PAGARE, the invoice, and the bank check. This are the most commonly used in commerce in the country. All this documents basically consists on a paper that says that a person owes a certain quantity of money to other, and the day the debt must be paid. Based upon the simplicity of this information, is that if the debtor does not pays, and the creditor has in is power an executive title of this kind as his money´s guarantee, goes before a judge asking for the aplication of this fast procedure for the debt´s collect.
So, as the judge receives the complaint, immediately must dispatch the executions, this means that there are going to be confiscated bank accounts, vehicles, properties, and inclusive the debtor´s personnal goods in his house or office, everything regarding to make him pay his debt. After this, if the debtor has any reclamation against the collect´s procedure, it can be done before the judge that handles the case, but this after this first stage, O SEA, according to the debtor´s situation, maybe for him will be more convenient to pay and so avoid that his goods and properties will be sale at auction.
There are special guarantees for some debts: The mortgage and the PRENDA. The mortgage is done on real estate properties, the PRENDA on vehicles specialy. This guarantees have their own special procedures to collect a debt throug them, they are in the 660 and 674 articles of the Code of Civil Procedures. In this cases, the procedure are directed to the capture and sale at auction of the goods given as guarantee.
This documents must have some formalities so they can have the privilegee of being collected in the fast procedure. The recquirements changes depending on the document that is going to be used, but a little mistake can get out the possibility of using the fast procedure, making the debt collection becomes an ordinary procedure, a long procedure with many things to prove. The best is always to entrust its redaction to a lawyer, who will have a better criteria to choose what things must be contained in the document that will protect the payment of a debt.