COLUMN

Introducing a bi-weekly online column by MARIE MENDEL covering stories and facts on Real Estate in Nicaragua.

Lesson 1: This might get dirty

As is some times the case in purchasing land in Nicaragua, it is unclear who actually owns the property to begin with, but ten years ago, when I first ventured to what would become my home near San Juan Del Sur, I would have bet the real owner was the monkey with the giant red testicles.

There I stood, up to my knees in frigid water, my driver having planted his dilapidated, probably senile, car deep in the muddy bottom of the spring-rising river. Despite this drawback in transportation, the seduction of the place was already upon me. The trees were laden with orchids and colorful birds; bright yellow flowers were shamelessly hitting on all the blue butterflies. The wet soil of fresh rain emitted the somehow erotic smell of new life as it reflected the rays of the ever-hot sun.

Then I saw the monkey. At first I felt it and then I saw it. Glaring from his branch in the tree over my head, with a look of suspicion and possible reproach, he decided to grant an uneasy welcome by dangling his planetary-sized reproductive luggage a metre from my face, as if to say, “I will allow you to stay, but don’t mess with me. I have the biggest balls in all of Nicaragua.”

As it turned out the inordinately ornamented monkey was not the owner, though he continued to behave as such by throwing large and elaborate parties in my backyard, where the guest monkeys were invited to eat freely from the buffet of my ill-fated garden.

In fact the real owner was the aunt of the driver—the guy who had just attempted to impregnate the riverbed with his car. His name was Julito. He had dressed up for the occasion: blue jeans, long-sleeved checkered shirt, shiny black shoes, and a bright green baseball hat. Perhaps because of his uncanny accoutrements, it was I that was asked to walk behind the car and push. Fearing crocodiles, snakes, razor-toothed fish and the other inhabitants of my then-naïve mind, I used all my powers to force the car out, only to be draped in a thick tuxedo of cold black mud.

Julito finally got out of his car, shook his head and walked off. Thus, I had my first lesson in searching for property in Nicaragua: always use a four-wheel drive.

When Julito did reappear, he did so with an ox cart. The monkey nodded his approval. Two strong bored oxen pulled the car out. And we were on our way. Incidentally, the ox cart owner became my neighbor and his oxen my best friends during the rainy seasons -- they kept on pulling my car out of the river, without complaint.

As for the property owner, after paying “gas money” to Julito, he gave me a name. I had been in Nicaragua for a year and had learned that everybody is referred to by a nickname. It took me days to figure out the nickname of the landowner and another day to find her. I almost gave up. But where else could I possibly afford to buy farmland and still have enough money left to build a small house? The dream of a patio overlooking my garden kept me going.

All of this was prior to San Juan del Sur having 17 (or whatever it is) real estate offices. Prior to air-conditioned pick up trucks and smiling real estate agents providing all the necessary paperwork. It took me weeks of standing in line in hot sweaty offices in Rivas to get all the required papers. Flipping through handwritten books, describing the situation of the land, all the owners in a big long list and trying to figure out what the lawyer was saying. (The Nicaraguan mystery of adding papers to the papers of the papers made it almost impossible to get it done.)

Buying land in Nicaragua got much easier. Somebody can do all the paperwork for you and finding the piece you want is not hard at all. Finding the owner of the land is much harder and finding out if the owner really owns it, even harder. And has the owner paid his taxes? Has he inscribed it in all the necessary books? Is the plan really the plan or just some fictitious drawing? Is the land title really for that piece of land? Or his neighbor’s? Which lawyer to use? And what is he supposed to do for you? Who is paying the lawyer? Does anybody have a claim against the land? And can anybody put a claim against the land? What about Title Insurance? What do they insure or is the contract only about the small print? And once you bought the land, who will build your house? The swimming pool? Is there power and water? And if not, how to get power and water? Sewage systems? How to get Internet? Phone? Roads? And how to deal with the neighbor’s cows and horses? In future columns all those questions will be answered.

In the last ten years, the process of acquiring real estate in Nicaragua has become easier, though not without its challenges. Yes, I can say that it still helps to have some balls.

Marie Mendel lived in San Juan Del Sur for ten years where at least one bar still bears here name. She is the author of the German-language book "Badenixe Sucht Mehr." She currently lives in Vienna.