3 Things You Should Always Check Before Buying a Property

Have you found your dream home, countryside property, or a plot of land to build your future house? In property listings, everything usually looks perfect – a beautifully renovated home, an attractive neighbourhood, and an appealing price. In such situations, it's easy to make a rushed decision. However, it's important to remember one crucial detail: attractive photos in property listings do not reveal the legal status of the property.

For most people, purchasing real estate is one of the most significant financial decisions they will ever make. To avoid costly mistakes and years of legal disputes, it is essential to carry out thorough due diligence before signing a reservation or deposit agreement.

Using Lursoft IT's Real Estate Services, any buyer can easily verify the actual legal and factual status of a property. Here are three "hidden" risks that everyone should check before deciding to purchase real estate.

Check whether the seller has the legal right to sell the property
When viewing a property, you may be greeted by a friendly and helpful person who appears ready to complete the sale. However, one important question should always be asked: Is this person the sole owner of the property? In practice, buyers often encounter situations that may cause serious problems, such as:

The property has several co-owners (for example, after an inheritance has been divided), and not all of them agree to the sale.
The property is jointly owned by spouses, meaning the consent of both spouses is required to complete the transaction.
The seller only has the right to use the property rather than ownership rights.
By reviewing the Land Register extract available at www.lursoft.lv, you can clearly verify who the legal owner is and whether the person you are negotiating with is legally entitled to sign the purchase agreement.

Identify Encumbrances and Restrictions
A spacious and well-maintained yard may look impressive, but a visual inspection alone will not reveal what you are legally allowed—or not allowed—to do with the property. Encumbrances and restrictions can significantly affect both your daily life and the property's future value. What might you discover?

Easements. Your dream property's yard may include a legally established right of way allowing neighbours to drive across it to access their own property.
Building restriction lines and protection zones. Underground utility cables, gas pipelines, or protected shoreline areas may run through the land, limiting future construction opportunities.
Protected cultural heritage status. If the property has cultural monument status, any renovation or alteration work must be approved by the relevant authorities.
By reviewing the Lursoft IT Real Estate Report, you can obtain complete and comprehensive information about all registered encumbrances affecting the property.

Verify the Actual Composition of the Property
When visiting a property, you may see a beautifully renovated house with a spacious garage, a newly built extension, and a cosy sauna. However, your purchasing decision should not be based solely on what you see. It is equally important to verify the official records to understand exactly what is legally registered at that address. Common discrepancies include:

Unregistered buildings and unauthorized construction. If an outbuilding or house extension cannot be found in the Cadastre records, it has most likely been built without proper approval. This may result in difficulties obtaining a bank mortgage and require a lengthy legalization process.
Incorrect land use designation. You may plan to purchase a beautiful meadow to build your family home, only to discover that the land is officially classified as agricultural or forest land where residential construction is not permitted. Changing the land use designation can be a complex and time-consuming process. Similarly, commercial premises advertised as apartments may still be officially registered as commercial property, creating significant bureaucratic challenges for the buyer.
Discrepancies in area measurements. Before purchasing a property, always verify that the land area or floor space stated in the advertisement matches the official Cadastre records.
Only after confirming that the property's actual condition fully corresponds with the information recorded in official registers should you proceed with completing the transaction.

A single report from lursoft.lv, bringing together all essential information about a property in one place, can help you avoid unnecessary stress and potentially significant financial losses.

Check a Property
The Real Estate Report combines information from the Cadastre Information System (including open textual and geospatial data), the Real Estate Market Database, open data from the State Construction Control Bureau, information on sanctions recorded in state registers, electronic auction data published by the Court Administration, and data from the Register of Enterprises of the Republic of Latvia.