Utility Hook-Ups in Panama
Once you have found your rental, or purchased a home, you will need Electrical, Water, Cable and Internet.
For Water, if you are renting, this will be handled by your Landlord, and water and trash pickup will be included in the rent, and it is handled with their property taxes. If you purchased a home, you lawyer will help you get this into your name when the same is recorded with the property tax department. Then once a year you will have to go there, and pay your water and tax bill.
For Electrical, if you are renting, you and your landlord will decide on whose name the bill will be in. If they want it in your name, they will have to provide you a letter that you take to the electrical place with a current bill, and get it transferred into you name. Typically they will as for a small deposit. If you purchased a home, your lawyer will provide you the paperwork to take to the electrical place to get the electrical in your name.
If you need help with these services, as they typically will not be serving you in English at these offices, we can take you there and help get it done. Fill in the form below, and we will get back to you.
Internet and Cable TV, depending on your needs, there are a lot of options here. If you need high speed (fiber optic) internet, like for work or for steaming, before you sign a lease make sure you know what is available in your area. In the major cities, and most big town, you have fiber available, from a couple companies with speeds of up to 1000 Mbps, and as little as $30 – $80 a month, but in the outskirts of these ares, you may not have fiber, and may have to resort to a radio tower type system, which will provide you 3 – 5 megs, at a cost over $100 a month. Some remote ares only have phone line ADSL available for high speed, at speeds of maximum 10 Mbps.
Cable TV is available in most ares, but remember, you are in Panama, so many of the stations are in Spanish. Although they do offer a lot of North American programming, just make sure the installer sets your device to English, and English audio when available, as many of the major US stations, broadcast both in original English and Spanish “dubbed”, and of course the units are preset to Spanish audio, but easily changed so you can ed up getting 1/2 of the channels in English.