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8 Rules for Investor Survival in Honduras
By: Lorenzo Dee Belveal 1. Don’t stint on pre-investment research and evaluation. Hire the best lawyer you can find to check documents. Be suspicious! Be aware that you are doing business in a country that is notorious for its harsh treatment of foreign "investors." The judicial system is utterly unreliable, and even the most iron-clad "document" may be rendered meaningless by a subsequent order by a bribed judge. It happens. It can happen to you. 2. Don’t hazard money in a Honduras investment that you can’t afford to lose without endangering your standard of living. You might think you are "investing" - but the reality is that you are "speculating" on the whims of Honduras laws and courts to protect your interests should events require. Therecord in this regard is not the least bit reassuring. 3. Make no long-term plans for your Honduras "investment." Nothing is quite as temporary as a Honduras court decision. The judicial ruling of today can disappear with the stroke of a pen, should subsequent events suggest it. In Honduras, "everything is for sale" if the price is right. Unfortunately this also includes your land! Never forget this. 4. If you don’t plan to live on your land, don’t buy it. Do not buy rural acreage land unless you intend to live on it, or you are prepared to keep a trusted caretaker on it at all times. Land left unattended constitutes an open invitation to both "squatters" and land-grabbers. By the time you get back somebody else may have stolen your land, had fraudulent documents on it drawn up, re-registered it - and sold it again!. Perhaps you can overcome the theft in court, but it will probably take far more time and involve more out-of-pocket costs than you are willing to pay. "Absentee" owners usually lose. Thieves-in-residence usually win. 5. Pay your taxes personally and save the receipts meticulously. If worst comes to worst, your tax receipts (taxes are collected annually by the Cabildo in the Municipality in which the land is physically situated) may be the only corroborative evidence you can show to prove the land is really yours. If you authorize someone else to pay your taxes (in your absence) he may pay the taxes punctually, but in his name instead of yours. A few years of this, a few dollars into a corrupt judge’s pocket, and he can go to court and prove that YOUR land is HIS land - because he’s been paying the taxes on it! 6. Have a professional survey done, and a formal plat-map drawn and attested to by your licensed surveyor, before a notary-public. Nobody really "owns" land. They own the "documentation" which locates, describes, and details how said land came in the possession of the claimant. If challenged, your ownership will hinge on your survey data, plat map and copy of your certified public document, as it appears in the Registro Publica de Propiedad Immuebles, That’s all. So get it right the first time. By the time you realize that either your title or legal tenancy is seriously endangered, it will be much too late to go back and fix your oversights. 7. Build strong fences and keep them in good condition. Once you own land, you must maintain it. Basic maintenance is your fence. With rural land especially, good, tight fences are minimal protection against squatters and peripheral incursions by aggressive neighbors, with whom you share "meets" and "bounds." Keep your fence lines chopped out and open. The idea is to keep your boundaries clear and visibly obvious to everybody. 8. At the first sign of trouble, head for the court house. Do not try to privately negotiate a boundary dispute. Even if you succeed, your "informal" agreement has no legal standing. Go get your surveyor (whose sworn signature is on your plat map) and your lawyer, and take the problem to court. A land document is much like a copyright or a patent registration: None of these instruments can be deemed reliable until they have been litigated. Once you have taken the first invader to court and won, any other land thieves who may be "casing" your property holdings will likely turn their attention to someone whom they consider an easier "mark." ======================== Note: The situations described above are not just hypothetical. In three decades as a Roatan resident and land-owner, I have seen every one of these charades played out. Some of them many times. If someone had given me this set of "investment" rules before I bought my first piece of island land, it could have saved me a great deal of money, and no end of frustration. Good luck to you! L. D. B. Lorenzo Dee Belveal, Author
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