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A Readers Opinion
Costa Rica Real Estate possession law
creates anarchy in courts
A readers opinion
Dear A.M. Costa Rica:
We are approaching the anniversary of an event that exemplifies the anarchy, caused by an archaic, unfair, Costa Rican law, that primarily benefits thieves, not the poor it was deigned to aid.
Last year a mob of more than 100 weapon-wielding squatters invaded a guarded, gated, five-hectare parcel recently awarded to the rightful owner after a 20-year legal nightmare and forcefully re-occupied his land. In the process, the squatters, hacked at the owner with a machete and almost killed him. The local police eventually intervened and rescued the man, saving his life. To date only one arrest has been made, even with camera surveillance.
The justification used by the invaders was that since they bought the “possession rights” they were legally entitled to it. In Costa Rica, buying, mapping and registering one’s possession rights, is not illegal, nor immoral (See July 3, 2009, A.M. Costa Rica article "Citi says involvement by board member in Herradura land dispute not unethical"), it is “Big Business.” Additionally, one does not even need to “occupy” land to squat. The law recognizes a guard shack with a caretaker (co-conspirator) as a possession.
In the case of Herradura, the local authorities have allowed over 400 structures without permits and constructed in public land (river bank) and graded roads at taxpayer expense on occupied land. The new occupants pose a burden on all local infrastructure without paying property tax or respecting construction rules. The influx of poor who buy “possession rights,“ also causes overcrowding in the public schools.
The five- to seven-year legal process gives the well-organized criminals/original invader, time to re-sell the property with no legal ramifications. In essence, this is government collusion to aid in the theft of land.
The law giving legal rights, most significantly, the right to re-sell, to occupants, invites corruption, violence and unnecessarily jams the court system with property suits. Over 45 percent of the supreme court of Costa Rica’s cases involved some sort of possession dispute.
This costs the taxpayers millions of dollars, and it slows all legal processes to the point that there is no justice. The winner is not the poor family that bought the possession rights because they needed a place to live or the landowner who spent 10 years in court paying tens of thousands on lawyers, but the thief who stole the land and resold the possession rights before the court could respond.
For the good of the people of Costa Rica , the resale of stolen property should be illegal!
Timmis Moore
Herradura
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