While rushing to Casa Verde, to try out their new breakfast offering and bid some friends adios, I received a call from the seller of my boat. I was to meet him at 9:30 at the notary's office to get a notarized bill of sale. Breakfast was quick, as I had none and I rushed down to the notary office and tied up my dog outside. Five minutes later I had a notarized bill of sale in hand. I went to collect my dog to be met by some administrative personnel from the office who tried to tell me I had to pay a fine for my dog fertilizing the lawn. Near his deposit was a styrofoam plate that I used to clean up his mess. They were adamant that I needed to pay a fine. I feigned complete lack of understanding and thanked them profusely for advising me and left without paying. I'm sure the money would never have hit any municipal coffers. I wish this had this been the only shit I had to deal with for the day.
The seller was telling me all about the fishing in Pedasi and didn't want to let me go, but I had a former commitment. Finally my real estate agent paged me and I used that as an excuse to break off.
Now, I was supposed to close last week, but the paperwork never made it to Bocas. I entered the real estate office and started going over the documents. I wanted to go through the documents in the order in which they were enumerated in the purchase contract, my real estate agent insisted that I work on them in the order in which they were clipped. I grabbed the first document and asked him what it was. "That's your certificate of occupancy from the ministry of health." No, it's not, it's a receipt for dental treatment. WTF? I can read that much. examen odontológico does not mean certificate of occupancy. My real estate agent called his girlfriend to translate. I was hoping for someone with some familiarity with Real Estate transactions in Panama as there appeared to be none in the room.
I looked at the sales contract, which was written in English. WTF? Only Spanish documents are legal in Panama. He wanted me to wire a different amount than was on the contract. WTF? It says that upon full payment... and he wanted me to withhold some money and give it to other parties. No, I don't think so.
I grabbed the next document and my agent told me "that covers item 11" and took it out of my hand. No, that covers half of 11 there should be another document, please stop helping me. We got to the survey. I said "There are supposed to be two government reference points on this document, there are none." He looked at me blankly, called the surveyor, then the attorney, who I had just recently found was representing the seller too. Back to the surveyor. "You only need those if you are using the survey for titling. That costs $600 more." "Well, then what the f**k good is this survey? It's from the same guy and has the same information as the last survey." "But you couldn't find the markers." "There was supposed to be a cleared out boundary." "I didn't know where the boundaries were." He was happy to point to random spots on the land until I actually wanted to locate the markers. What a cluster f**k.
This land is right of possession, a far more nebulous means of owning rights to property than buying titled property. I had insisted that all of my neighbors sign off on the boundaries. I found one document, that hadn't been notarized and another document was missing. He called the attorney. Yes, she had the missing document in Panama City. Great. I'm not closing today. I left in disgust.
My attorney called to tell me that the document was on the way. I've heard that one before. Fuming, I walked down the street. My attorney called again. "XXXX has gotten the document notarized." WTF? Got to love it when the person who signed the document is 310 kilometers away and it gets notarized anyway.
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