Real Estate Attorney

Ruth, my attorney agreed to meet me at Villa Michelle, my preferred play to stay in Panama City. I didn't want to go to her office at 3 in the afternoon. I've had the fun of trying to catch a taxi in Panama at 5; they are all reserved, every weekday. That was a nice accommodation, she is working at a fix price on this house closing. This place is in an upscale neighborhood near where she lives. She showed up promptly, we exchanged civilities and proceed to go down a list from the sales contract through all of the documents that she had, reviewing them and checking them off.

I noted several documents that I expected that had not yet been retrieved. Ostensibly it was my fault that I wanted a signoff on the property boundaries with the owners or custodians of any property adjoining this property. Gringos might not understand this, but this is Right of Possession property. There is no title to the land, one gets a right to live there or use the land for other purposes, ownership is not as clear as it is with titled property. Only recently have these ocean front properties become eligible for title. It is a long process, when one is done the land becomes more desirable to people who are spooked by non titled property. This is not to say that there aren't a great many risks associated with ownership of Right of Possession property, I won't bother trying to educate you here, if you have reason to care, drop me a line.

I was told I should have the land resurveyed. The original surveyor says it will be $850. Now he plans to use a GPS. Interesting, with no geo coordinates on the original survey I'd like to know what that means. If he is not using a differential GPS reproducibility might put the same coordinates as far as 8 meters away. This is a circle jerk. I advised my attorney that the fence my real estate agent said is in place does not and never has existed. One has to question the value of a survey that gives a different result every time it is conducted. Trust me, on these slopes, in this jungle and in bananas country no transits, compasses, verniers or tape measures were employed.

The discussion of the boat was very short. I don't want it. I don't think it's registered in Panama, no registration fees have ever been paid, the hull is filled with water and can't be drained, the console and the floor would have to come up, the gas tank needs to be replaced as does the tilt bar and the engine. My real estate agent thinks he was slick telling me for 45 days that the house sitter, "Geoffery says there is nothing wrong with the boat." When I inspected the boat and then had it surveyed this duplicitous worthless specimen of humanity said, "Oh, I knew it had no value all along. I said 'Geoffery says there is nothing wrong with the boat'". Bite me.

In any event progress is being made. It would have been nice if the real estate agent (he who shall not be named) would have started executing the tasks for which he was responsible in time to get this deal done in the time he allotted for its completion.