Santana real estate nightmare – part III

Posted by Siegfried on July 8, 2008, 10:46 pm
189.162.143.248

Ok, now we are talking about a development property ( karl this is not the one either !) we called the triangle( which it turns out it is not, but the name stuck). Joe “invited’ me in because he could not ‘raise’ enough capital to buy the ‘package’. I joined in as 1/3rd owner, but I made it clear to Joe that I needed fast turn around on that investment, ie. I needed it to generate income in a year or two. No problem !!! said joe ( who got/retained ownership of 1/3rd, which by now we all know is ILLIGAL !!!), we will subdivide and start selling off some lots to generate revenue .things actually progressed quite nicely for a while, we had a road cut in, fence lines cleared , the land itself cleared…and then it slowed down., all of a sudden Joanie and joe were not talking anymore about fast progress, now all of a sudden they started talking about longterm, years etc. their involvement in the boca de iguana resort may explain that. they may have perceived the triangle developement as competition, which of course is wrong from a marketing point of view, the two project could have been promoted together and would complement each other nicely. Anyhow “we” ground to a halt, the paperwork is not taken care of properly ( what else is new!!!), need much more work. In the course of these ‘proceedings’ I found that neither joe nor anybody else in that operation is knowledgeable in legal matters nor in matters that relate to developments in terms of paperwork etc. there was a time when we had the opportunity to subdivide without any costs and charges, which for whatever reason was lost( no explanation was offered to date ), now there is talk of all sorts of expenses, costs etc, we are talking about 30k and more. as mentioned the paperwork is ‘half baked’, any other attempt to go foreword with the developement is systematically boycotted by the person who claims to own 1/3rd, the illegal part. Now when we started the discussion for me to join, the ‘package’ consisted of one building lot in ‘campo de aviacion’, one hectar in the coloradas, also know as zona urbana and 20 ha of the triangle. First the lot in campo de aviation disappeared from the records, now the coloradas part is not included in the paperwork anymore and when the title to the triangle came it was for 13 ha (normal shrinkage says joe )ie 1/3rd of the property is missing. Digging a bit we now have evidence that suggests that very early in the process joe knew that the triangle was ( at that time) 13 ha, while he sold us and all along talked about 20 ha. Since this is one of my lower priority items, we have not researched further to re-construct what happened and how, but also worthwhile mentioning here is the fact that on several occasions late last year I asked joe for a personal meeting to discuss this and the many other outstanding and unresolved problems, he basically refused , later, some other time, manana… Next, let us go to EL Tuito, La Parota, and this I know is also of interest to some other folks out there. I bought a property from Joe with a little ramshackle house on it bordering a creek, beautiful and peaceful. A few month ago the Santana ‘office’ send me a cession de derechos, half baked again , legally useless, but I had bought most of these properties to be used like a savings account, so when I need money I sell one. As you may remember, I have no papers to sell anything, the land of the one title we have is also in dispute and needs more legal work until it is sellable, so’ el tuito’ maybe can be fixed and put on the market.?! Ok, so we hire a lawyer in PV to fix the papers to allow us to sell. Within a few days she calls us and said :” I hate to tell you this, but you did not buy a property up here, what you have is a lease from the indigenous concil/band for the duration of your life, then it goes back to them “. When she found out that this was Indian land, she spoke with an attorney who seems to know the regulation of indian/indigenous land and he stated that no-one can own that land, you can obtain the right to use it for your lifetime. AGAIN , I have nothing to sell. The matter is of course also being dealt with legally. The next and last item is more of a Santana nightmare, no real estate… Joe asked me about two years ago to lend him some money (with interest), we were very good friends, so did. Then late last year I started running out of money and asked to get my money back.’ Well now is not a good time, please wait till next year “. Anyhow I did not want to wait any longer. After much urging etc over the next few month I got some cheque for some interest and two more installments, but almost half was held back “for money they had advanced for me” so I asked for receipts etc to see what they are talking about. In a’ legal’ meeting I brought that loan up and two lawyers immediately said that any withholding, even if it substantiated, in Mexico is ILLEGAL !!! one of the lawyer wrote an e-mail to Santana to tell them that is illegal to withhold any amount from that personal loan. Now that too will have to be included our legal proceedings. Now I rest my case, I know this here is a long one but I did not want to go into part IV and V.

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