Sylvain’s Panama Blog

If you are planning to get a visa for residency in Panama, you may want to start the proceedings real soon. A new draft law is being circulated for comments and the plan is to make it official on August 26th, 2008. There are several changes that will make it more difficult, and more expansive for foreigners to gain residency, Here are some of the main points:

- The Immigration Consultive Commission will be authorized to impose nationality quotas for residency,
- Tourists deemed “persona non grata” may be denied entry on a non-discriminatory basis,
- Tourists may remain in the country for 90 days, renewable for 60 days when justified,
- Monthly pension revenue requirements to apply for a Pensionada visa is doubling to $1000
- Foreign workers must have a salary between US$1,000 and US$1,500 monthly to apply for
residency and work permit, up from US$500,
- Investor visas may only be requested by one applicant per company,
- Forestry visa minimum investment is doubled to US$80,000,
- Small-business investor visa is eliminated,
- Macro-business investor visa minimum investment is doubled to US$200,000,
- Self-solvency investor visa minimum investment is increased to US$350,000 left in deposit for 4 years.
- Application fees will double

So hurry up, get down there, and apply for your visa.

Tags: Immigration, Panama

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Here’s a few more pictures of my construction site.

In this picture you can see the high-tech concrete pumping system used to bring concrete up to the second floor of the bedroom module. It consists of a makeshift bridge so they can wheelbarrow the concrete from the livingroom where they mix it, up the hill to the bedroom unit. They then bring it up to the second floor using buckets and a couple of ladders.  

We now have a second floor bedroom.

They have started finishing the walls of the guesthouse. The roof should be going on soon.

They are also completing the pool foundation. They need to pour the pool floor before they can pour the rear wall of the guesthouse, which is part of the pool. Should happen in about three weeks.

Tags: Construction, Panama, Tropical House

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We got two good news items this week for Canadians who travel to Panama regularly like myself.

The first one was that Continental Airlines is joining Star Alliance. This means that will be able to buy connecting flights between Air Canada and Continental, opening up many new possibilities for flying to Panama. This also means that we will finally be able to collect or use Aeroplan points to travel to Panama, given that I have nearly 1 million Aeroplan points, this is great news for me. Now it remains to be seen whether or not COPA (Panama’s airline) which is partly owned by Continental will also follow suit. They might not as they have a code share agreement with KLM/Air France.

The second good news is that Canada and Panama have finally resolved their differences over access to each other’s airports. This means that Air Canada should finally be able to begin the long-rumoured direct flights to Panama City soon. Perhaps COPA might also implement direct flights to Toronto.

Tags: Panama, Travel

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I just got more news from our construction site. They have begun getting some heavy afternoon storms which has caused problems with dirt flowing down unto the foundation work. Because of this they decided to work on the main pool wall so they now have a place to push the dirt into and keep it out of the foundation on the other side.

Here’s a couple of pictures of that work. You can see how the wall join the guest house to the bohio.

Tags: Construction, Infinity Edge, Panama, Pool

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Construction is still going well. There were a lot of heated discussions last week on some Yahoo groups regarding the difficulty of building in Panama. If you’ve built a house anywhere, you know how frustrating it can be to deal with all the errors and problems, so just imagine building in a third world country!

There are two main problems when building in Panama even if you have an honest and well meaning contractor. The first one is time: everything takes longer in Latin America, and they just don’t seem to care if they’re late. So projects that drag on for several months past schedule are common.

The second one is the quality of finishing work. This problem has two root causes:

1. there is a shortage of trained workers in Panama, and very few actual tradesmen with experience with finishing work like painting, tile laying, and wood working.

2. most of the labourers live in simple houses with unpainted cement block walls, tin roofs, and dirt floors. Our expectations of quality finishes are totally foreign to them and make no sense whatsoever.

This means that the last few months of building, the finishing work, can drag on forever and requires constant attention to catch problems early. My house is still at the block laying stage, something they do quite well. I’m bracing myself for more problems and delays as we approach the finishing stage. We’re asking for the guest house to be finished early, this will spread the finishing work a bit and give us an early experience as to what we can expect later on.

Here are a few more pictures I took just before we left Panama last week:

This is the preparation work before pouring the upper bedroom floor. Notice all the rebar work as well as the water pipes and electrical conduits that have to be placed before the pour.

Here you can see the bedroom module, ready to pour the second floor.

Here you can see the foundation work for the pool. You can begin to see what the pool will look like, nestled between the livingroom/kitchen unit on the left, and coming right up against the back of the guest house on the right.

Here’s a closeup view of the very heavy pool foundation.

Here you can see the rebar for the infinity edge pool wall that goes from the bohio on the left to the guesthouse at the top. The next picture shows the same wall from the driveway side, where the wall will create a 3 meter tall waterfall.

Tags: Buidling, Panama, Pool, Tropical House

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We unfortunately had to cancel our trip to Coiba Island after our boat ride became unavailable. So instead we spent three days exploring the Azuero Peninsula of Panama, and it was well worth it. What a beautiful place that is, with extremely varied landscape that includes rain-forest covered mountains, rolling plains, a desert wasteland, and gorgeous beaches.

We only explored a small portion of the peninsula and ended up spending the better part of two days in a wonderful place called La Playita Resort. I will post some pictures and details of this place in a future post.

We also spent a couple of hours at the desert wasteland of Sarigua National park and despite arriving there too late in the morning to take advantage of the best light, I still managed to get 20 decent shots which you can find in this gallery: Sarigua National Park

Tags: Azuero, Panama, Sarigua Desert, Travel

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We’re heading back to Panama next week to visit some friends and check on our house construction and business investments. This will be my 7th trip in 20 months.

We also planned a two-day camping trip to Coiba Island, and I’m really looking forward to that. Should provide some interesting photo opportunities!

Tags: Coiba Island, Construction, Invesment, Panama, Photography

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I got a few more pictures and a bit of excitement this week. I have someone watching over my project and last week he noticed that the kitchen window opening was completely wrong. It was both too small and in the wrong place!

But I’m more and more impressed with my builder, Eleuterio Gutiérrez. Jim noticed the problem Thursday morning, and he arranged for a meeting with Gutiérrez the next day to discuss the problem but didn’t tell him what he wanted to talk about. Well, by the time Jim showed up on Friday the foreman had not only found the problem by himself, but he had already corrected it!

Jim was impressed, and so am I!

Here’s a picture of the living/kitchen module with the walls partly built and the offending window opening in the far back corner.

Here’s a picture of the guest house showing the roof/pool-deck over the bedroom.

Tags: Altos del Maria, Construction, Panama

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I talked about the Palmex synthetic thatch roofing before in these pages, and I’ve now decided to put some of it on parts of my house, specifically on the bohio and guest house. A good friend of mine found this product and decided to start a distribution business for it in Panama. This is a really nice product that looks great, doesn’t leak, doesn’t attract insects and rodents, and is guaranteed for 20 years. I liked the product so much that I decided to invest in his company myself!

Check it out at Palmex Panama.

Tags: Palmex, Panama, Thatch Roofing

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Good news! The 20 year property tax exemption in Panama just got extended so I will be able to take advantage of it!

By DON WINNER for Panama-Guide.com - Today Law 21 of 15 April 2008 was published in the “Official Gazette”, and specifies a change to Article 81 of Law 6 of 2005, saying “Those improvements whose construction permits were issued before 1 July 2009 will enjoy twenty years exoneration from Property Tax, as long as the improvements are inscribed in the Public Registry before 31 December 2011. The exonerations granted by this article will be conceded upon the date of inscription (in the Public Registry) or the issuance of the occupancy permit, which ever comes first.” So, with that the very popular 20 year tax exoneration has been extended, yet again. Good news for anyone looking to buy property in Panama. Wanna buy a condo? Credit for spotting this goes to Juan Ramón Vallarino …

Tags: Panama, tax exemption

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