When your property manager in Lima stops delivering

A rental property in Lima held from Europe rests entirely on one person: the one who collects the rent, answers the tenant and reports back to you. As long as that chain holds, distance is invisible. The day it breaks, it becomes visible all at once, and the costliest reflex is to wait one more month.

This guide sets out what a non-resident owner can concretely do, in what order, with which Peruvian instruments, and at what point a lawyer on the ground becomes necessary. It does not replace legal advice: our terms of engagement expressly exclude legal and tax advice. It gives you the framework to ask the right questions and not lose the weeks that count.

Spotting the failure before it gets expensive

Management that is going wrong almost always sends the same signals, in the same order. Catching them early changes everything, because your options are far simpler when the manager is holding one month of rent than when he is holding six.

These symptoms look alike, but they do not tell the same story, and they do not call for the same answer. Negligence is corrected by a firm conversation and a tighter framework. A manager with a cash-flow problem, dipping into rent to plug a hole elsewhere, calls for a fast and orderly exit. Deliberate misappropriation calls for a lawyer, immediately.

What the three have in common: the longer you wait, the less material you have left. The most useful evidence is what you gather before you announce that you are unhappy.

What Peruvian law already gives you

Many foreign owners try to negotiate what they are already entitled to. The contract binding you to a manager is, in the vast majority of cases, a mandato under the Peruvian Civil Code. That status gives you three immediate levers, whatever your contract happens to say.

You can demand the accounts at any time. Article 1793 of the Civil Code requires the agent to carry out the assignment personally, to follow your instructions, to inform you without delay of the execution of the mandate and to account for his management at the agreed time or whenever the principal demands it. In other words, you do not have to wait for the end of the quarter: a written request is enough to make silence a breach.

Diverted money must be returned, with damages. Article 1794 provides that an agent who uses for his own benefit, or applies to another purpose, money or goods he was to use for the mandate or hand over to you, must restore them and compensate the loss. This is the article that turns a "delayed transfer" into an obligation to repay.

You can terminate the contract by notarial letter. Article 1429 allows the party harmed by non-performance to demand, by carta notarial, that the other perform, within a period that may not be shorter than fifteen days, failing which the contract is terminated by operation of law. This is the central instrument: it fixes a date, it leaves an enforceable trace, and it does not require going before a judge first.

The first four moves, in order

The order matters more than the speed. Announcing your dissatisfaction before you have gathered the documents deprives you of half of them.

1. Gather before you alert. Collect the signed management contract, a copy of the current lease, the tenant's identity and contact details, the history of transfers received, the statements already sent, and a copy of any notarised power of attorney you signed. If some of these exist only at the manager's office, ask for them first in a neutral, operational tone.

2. Ask for the accounts in writing, with a date. A dated, factual email that expressly relies on the duty to account, and that sets a reasonable deadline. This document serves twice: sometimes it triggers the correction on its own, and it becomes the first item in your file if things harden.

3. Send the carta notarial. If the deadline passes without a satisfactory answer, the notarial letter records the breach, demands the sums and the documents, and announces termination of the contract failing performance within fifteen days. Draft it with a Peruvian lawyer: the wording determines what you will be able to invoke afterwards.

4. Re-establish contact with the tenant. The tenant is not your adversary; he is often the best-informed person involved. He knows whether he paid, when, and into which account. A tenant paying regularly while you receive nothing is the most direct evidence you can get.

The power of attorney that outlives the contract

This is the most common mistake, and the most damaging. Cancelling the management contract is not enough. If you signed a notarised power of attorney so that your manager could sign leases, collect rent or represent the property, that power does not disappear because the contract ends.

The Civil Code is clear on the principle: in a mandate with representation, revocation of the power extinguishes the mandate (article 1808). But the mechanics matter as much as the principle. Revocation is done by notarial deed, following the same procedure as the original power, and it must be registered with SUNARP to be enforceable against third parties. Until it is, a third party acting in good faith, a new tenant for instance, can still deal validly with your former manager.

Recent good news for non-resident owners: since Legislative Decree 1626 and the launch of the Índice Nacional del Registro de Mandatos y Poderes, announced on 12 November 2024, mandates and powers can be registered from any regional office and are valid throughout the country. The territorial constraint that forced you to target the right office is gone.

One special case is worth checking in your own paperwork: the irrevocable power. Article 153 of the Civil Code allows a power to be made irrevocable for a specific act, for a limited time, or where it is granted in the common interest of the parties or of a third party. The protection cuts both ways, though, because the same article sets a hard limit: an irrevocable power may not last longer than one year. A manager invoking an irrevocable power running for several years would be outside the legal framework.

Taking back control without losing the tenant

A property that empties out during a management dispute often costs more than the dispute itself. The goal is not merely to exit the contract, it is to keep a tenant who pays.

The first question to settle is the lease: who is named as landlord? If the manager signed in the owner's name, under the power of attorney, the lease binds you directly and continues to have effect after the mandate ends. That is the simplest situation. If the manager signed in his own name, the contractual relationship is between him and the tenant, and taking over requires a case-by-case analysis with a lawyer.

Once that is settled, the handover comes down to a few moves: notify the tenant in writing of the change of contact and of the new payment details, enclosing proof that you are the owner; demand from the outgoing manager the security deposit, the keys, the inventory taken at move-in and the balance of rent collected; inform the building administration of the change of agent; and check the state of common charges, which are usually the first item people stop paying.

One point on the security deposit is worth anticipating: it belongs to the tenant, not to the manager. A manager holding on to it after his mandate has ended falls squarely within article 1794, the restitution provision.

Summary table

The figures above are orders of magnitude recorded in 2026, meant to size the effort rather than to serve as a quotation. Notarial fees vary noticeably from one office to another.

What is settled before you sign

Most of the situations described above are neutralised at the moment the mandate is signed, at no cost. If you are about to hand over your property, these points are worth negotiating now rather than defending later.

These requirements are not signs of distrust, they are the standard of professional management. A serious manager accepts them without argument, and the way he reacts when you raise them already tells you something about what is coming.

Conclusion

A failing manager is not primarily a legal problem, it is a timing problem. The Peruvian framework is rather favourable to the owner: you can demand the accounts at any time, terminate the contract by notarial letter in fifteen days, and revoke a power in about a week of registration. What costs money is not the procedure, it is the quarter spent hoping the situation will right itself.

Two reflexes are worth keeping. Gather the documents before you announce anything. And never stop at cancelling the contract without checking whether a notarised power is still running: that is exactly where the unpleasant surprises live.