Wiring money to Colombisa

Has anyone recently wired money to their Colombian bank account (BancoColombia) to purchase real estate?

You mean Bancolombia?

Following, I am interested in the same maybe next year.  I was asked by real-estate lawyers for over 1% of the deal value for taking care of the paperwork.  I think it's too much. I am still searching for cheaper options.

So far, I have noticed recommendations on other expat forums to open:  Alianza Valores Brokerage Account

1) Open a brokerage account

2) Wire the money to Alianza

3) Convert the money to Colombian Pesos

4) Register the money with the Colombian National Bank (Banco de la República)

To open the brokerage account, you'll need to fill in a bunch of forms for Alianza (afterwards, they sendyou  four PDF forms totaling ten pages). Along with these forms, you'll have to provide:

copy of your passport

last 3 month bank statements

last personal income tax return (US clients: Form 1040)

a ‘personal presentation' e-mail where you talk about yourself and your future plans in Colombia.

supporting document for the source of the funds (ex: inheritance; sale of property; pay stubs)

Next, Alianza will schedule a phone interview with you to corroborate this information. Many of the necessary documents are only in Spanish, so keep that in your mind.

After the brokerage account is opened, you can wire the money from your bank account to Alianza, who will hold the funds until you give the green light to convert them into pesos. (Note: You have 7 business days to pull the trigger or the funds will be returned).

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Hope this is a good start, please keep me posted how you made out and if you found any cheaper way to do this. Good luck bud!

I have found the best way is to go to Colombia and set up an account for yourself.  Then you can freely deposit money to any of the main banks.  Then you can pay bills, transfer money bank to bank as you want.  The only drawback, when I made deposits initially to my account, I had to do it in cash for first 6 months while I had a probationary period.  Not sure why that is but that is normal for expats.

My wife has a Banco of Colombia account. I keep my money in the US and either use Xoom or my debit card.

Following, I am interested in the same maybe next year.  I was asked by real-estate lawyers for over 1% of the deal value for taking care of the paperwork.  I think it's too much.

Well, Mr. "Fuchs",

Compared to the 3% supposedly charged by real estate agents in Colombia, it doesn't seem too high, although I see no reason why a fixed $ amount can't be agreed to instead. I read a website called Primavera Realty claiming they can refer lawyers who charge around $1,000. Of course, that would be more than 1% for any property less than $100,000.

@seablock, You Can Send any amount of money In to Bancolombia but, Bancolombia is going to ask you were the money comes from like Bank account statements, proof of employer or if sold real estate, que proof of transactions, etc etc.

It will take some time maybe a week couple weeks after you do the wire transfer because they want to make sure they know exactly where the money is coming from but once you send all the documents and they accept them they will put the money in your account.

To save your time once you send the wire transfer send an email to this email

[email protected]

Tell them you just send a wire of whatever money you sent and you need to know what documents they require to get the money into your account

They will answer you telling you know to expect an email from them and that could take a couple days or more so don't get desperate.