Just when I least expect it…trouble finds me. We had not been in our new home yet for more than two weeks when we got a phone call from someone telling us that our property had been broken into and that this person was chopping all our 40 fruit trees down.
By the time we finally got back home from San Jose, every one of the trees had been destroyed (and the fence where they cut to gain access to the property). This person was claiming that he owned 600 square meters of our property – that he had bought it eight years ago.
The police showed up, but didn’t do anything about it because of two reasons. One, this guy was toting a paper that amounts to nothing more than a map. It’s not really proof of his ownership. But the police here are not very well educated. Many of the older cops don’t even have a high school education. Secondly, Isaac was so upset by the time we arrived, that he was screaming and yelling at everyone, including the police officer. This did not help our case at all.
Two weeks of legal homework and research shows that this guy did in
fact purchase this 600 sq mtrs from the same seller eight years ago.
The seller, Karen, claims that he never paid her for the property, so
she had it reversed out of town hall records (the “registro”). Well, it
turns out she thought she had. At least she paid a lawyer to deal with
it, but it never happened.
To make things worse, this guy bribed someone in the “registro” to
enter in a few more documents to secure this purchase. Clearly, he
knows what he is doing. I don’t think there was a coincidence involved
when he waited for us to be here for a couple of weeks and then to just
“know” when we were gone from the house long enough to destroy our
fence and orchard.
Now you’re probably thinking, “Why didn’t you make sure the property
was free and clear before you bought it?” But we did! As a
matter-of-fact we spent $400 paying a lawyer to research the whole
property before we committed to the purchase.
But the problem is that when the most recent plot map was created,
the topographer (surveyor) was told to ignore the discrepancy in the
registro. He was told that the old purchase (which still showed up in
public records) had been – or was in the process of – being reversed
out. He should never have taken their word for it, but he did.
So ultimately what ends up happening is that there are 2 different
“folio real” numbers for the same property in the registro. So when we
researched the one number the seller gave us, it showed that the
property was free and clear. There is no way any of us (except the
seller) would know about the second folio real number.
What happens now? We really don’t know. This guy is waiting to build
a house on the lot – which is in our side yard. Anything being built
there would block one of our most amazing views. In the meantime, we’re
waiting for the seller to take some kind of action against this guy –
or to somehow fix the situation. Until then, we BOTH own the property.
And that, my friend, is fraud.
Our lawyer says it could take up to 5 years to come to a solution
legally – and there is no guarantee that this guy will be proved wrong.
How is that possible? At least in North America (as flawed as many things are there), if you can’t prove you paid for the land, it’s not yours! Case closed. Things don’t work that way here I guess.
The worst part about this is we have our hands tied. We put down
about 50% on the land and have a mortgage from the seller on the
balance. If we stop paying her, she can take our deposit and the
property back. Or maybe the worst part is not being able to continue
fixing the place up. We can’t even put up a new fence and gate –
because we don’t know that we really own the property we paid for!
How does someone avoid this situation? I honestly don’t know. We did
everything we thought was possible except for buying title insurance.
And I’m not sure that title insurance would have even helped us in this
situation. I’m starting to think there is merit to some of the real
estate horror stories I’ve heard!
Buyer……..BEWARE!