COLUMN

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

previous columns:
Lesson 1: This might get dirty
Lesson 2: It ain't over when the fat lady signs
Lesson 3: If you're checking title, you might get the finger

Lesson 4: Take it to the bank OR X marks the spot

Here’s a tip for anyone who wants to make a fortune in the Nicaraguan real estate business, and I’ll take one per cent for this, start a finance company so investors who can’t pay cash for land can still buy. (I’m pretty sure you’ll have no problem recruiting forthright collections offices should somebody default on payment.)

Typically, and with no exception that I’m aware of, all deals are done on a cash-only basis, where money is wire transferred to a lawyer’s escrow account or directly to the seller. In my case, prior to there even being a bank in San Juan, Rivas, Nandaime or Massaya, it was cash and only cash. Specifically the cash was Yankee Greenbacks; C-notes; Ben Franklins, or whatever you want to call the American one-hundred-dollar bills that are coveted the world over. (Frankly, Ben Franklin, I’d prefer a Euro or a Chinese Yuan nowadays, but I still dig your 1776 balding mullet.)

In the pre-bank days my trouble was getting the money to the seller. It was two-fold: half of what I needed to produce was in a safe-deposit box in Costa Rica, and the other half was hidden, I won’t say where, in box like a pirate’s treasure, so much so I made a map of where it was with the customary X marking the spot it was hidden. Admittedly, the map part was more a personal joke to myself than a useful document – if you stick thousands of dollars somewhere, it’s hard to forget where you put it.

The land title and the paper containing the history of my land were wrapped up in the plastic bag. The seller had set the date to sign the testimonial for the next week, a Wednesday. I had five days to get the plan from the public registry in Rivas, the solvencia (confirmed payment of taxes) from the mayor’s office, excavate my savings, and get to San Jose and back. “No problem,” I thought. But alas, as per the norm, there is no “no problem.” There is always somehow a “yes problem.”

After some more bad coffee I boarded the bus to Rivas, hoping that the driver had no ambition to enter a race or mess up his axels on every pothole along the way. After zig-zagging to Rivas, I saw my first bad omen. A young man on his bicycle with a large chunk of ice in the carrier took a sharp turn right on the Pan Americana, barley escaping a tractor going the wrong way. I watched the iceblock slipping off the carrier, crushing on the ground. The biker stopped, growled and picked it up, brushed off the street dirt and kept on going towards the market. Ignoring the fact of what viruses, bacteria and other undesirable substances which might have been collected on the ice, I still bought half a litre of Pepsi hoping the ice within was not the very same I’d seen minutes earlier sliding down the street.

I approached the Public Registry office, prepared my sentences, and asked for the plan of Finca No. 7562. Hidden in a green wooden office with a miniscule sign I found a long brown wooden counter with two fat ladies standing behind it. Nobody else was there and it was well before lunch, which I mistook for a good sign. The ladies were involved in a discussion about their neighbours’ son’s love life, a seriously complicated story and far more interesting than working. After a while they noticed me and asked what I wanted. I said, “I need the plan of finca No. 7562.” The bigger one gave the order to go look for it. The smaller one disappeared in the next room. The radio played a Mariachi song; I drank the rest of my Pepsi and feared impending diarrhoea.

After a while the small official came back, shaking her head. No plan. I tried to argue. She shook her head. I looked lost. “All right”, she said, “go look for yourself!” She opened the wooden hatch and I passed into the dungeon of land plans. She followed me and said “If I could help her with 50 Cords she could help me find the plan.” We found it within thirty seconds.

I was very proud of myself and traveled back to San Juan. Slipped the third paper to the other two documents, and made a good knot into the plastic bag.

Next was the the mayor’s office -- a wooden house with a leaking roof and two missing windows. The secretary was really surprised when I asked her for the solvencia. After some asking around she discovered that the seller had to pay the land tax first. She was seriously astonished about the fact that somebody is actually doing all this paper chasing. Until then, she explained to me, one would go to the lawyer and sign the papers and it was done. I had to go find the seller, La Gorda, and tell her that she has to pay her land taxes. (Apperantly, every property owner has to pay property taxes, but nobody knew about this inconvenient rule.)

La Gorda laughed at me, “Nobody does that”! She had a second look at me and said, “You are serious? Right?” I nodded. “How much is it?” I didn’t know. She hushed me out of her house with the mission to find out. I trotted back to the mayors’ office. The secretary didn’t know, the garbage man didn’t know, the town bum didn’t know, the tax collector didn’t know. So I decided to ask the mayor. The mayor “wasn’t around.”

I got up on Monday morning with the first bus horn, fast enough to get the second bus to the intersection at La Virgen, to wait for the bus to the border. Next to the Obelisque are the graves of Sandinista warriors. I starred at them and wondered how they felt being buried on an intersection. Half an hour later I arrived at the border. I was worried about running into the customs official who almost didn’t let me into Nicaragua during my first visit. He had looked at my green passport saying that Austria does not exist and that I carry a fake document. He was not there. I hoped he had the day off for geography lessons.

I arrived at 4.00 p.m. in the Coca Cola Bus station in San Jose. A cabdriver got me to the bank just before they closed. I rushed in, smiled, showed my passport and the employee let me into the air-conditioned vault. It felt like vacation, escaping the heat, the dirt, the dust, the people. I stood there, surrounded by thousands of little drawers with black numbers and enjoyed the silence, the coolness. I was surprised at all the things I had crammed into that box. A life-long supply of contact-lens solution, four books I had already read, photos and an envelope with the money. I habitually looked over my shoulder, grabbed all the money, took of my shoes and stuffed them with green bills. They barley fit afterwards, but it felt safe to me. It was getting dark outside and I ran down to the hostel “Grand Hotel”. I slept with my shoes on.

Back in San Juan, the back taxes were resolved, all the papers were in order, and I had plundered my hiding place for the rest of the cash. Finally, the seller had her money and was instructed to where to sign the document that would make me the true a rightful owner of my little piece of Nicaragua. Much to my amusement, the lawyer ceremoniously indicated where the final signature should be, by marking the last line on the paper with a large black X.

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.