Curious About Argentina Posesión Adversa

[jbhenson]

I know someone who is paying taxes on a family lot that everyone else refuses to pay. the question is how long do they have to wait to file posesión adversa under argentina law. No one seems to know where the deed is and no one cares because its far away from them. So how long?

 

[ElQueso]

It may depend on the municipality. Best thing to do, I'd think, would be specifically to ask the officials who they are paying taxes to. I know a guy who did this in Ramos Mejia in BA province. He had to pay for a year or two, can't remember exactly, but he'd taken over tax payments on property that had been abandoned and no one had paid taxes on for decades.

 

[jbhenson]

Wow, thanks ElQueso. Im reading the laws now, filled with legalese, but ill read thorugh and read some case history too so I can better acquaint myself, any idea where most of the tax cases can be looked up or do the have a webpage for them? or is it something Ill have to make trips to places and sit and read?

Does that guy visit the forum here? If so I hope you can get him to post something on this, right now its a SECRET only the rich share with each other it would be great to let a few of the poorer people know about it!

 

[ElQueso]

The guy doesn't visit the forum, and I don't see him much in the last year or so. I'll see if I can get hold of him and ask him if he has any particulars.

BTW - this is not only known by the rich here. The poor (at least some) know about it, but don't often bother themselves to do much about it. For example, my wife's sister bought some property in Jose C Paz. It is in an area where a few poor folk got together and took over some abandoned land, then started parceling out plats to other poor folk. The guys who set it up originally (I don't know them) talked to the local municipality to make sure it was abandoned and even asked what they needed to do to make it legal. Of course, they never did anything, but everyone who bought plats from these guys, the guys told them where they needed to go to make their plats legal, with title and all. As far as I know, no one bothered to actually go through the process of proving improvements, paying the taxes, and so on. They do, however, dig down to make septic systems and when they encounter the municipality's sewer system they tie into that without charge, as well as electricity. Heh.

This is a good reason the family of the person you know needs to be careful - in the provinces (well, even here in the city it happens as well), if land is not occupied, it often gets occupied illegally by squatters, whether or not the taxes are being paid. And we all know what happens when squatters get involved here...

 

[jbhenson]

Yeah squatters have been on one of the properties for years now, according to Argentinian laws they now have to be evicted. If they stay on the property 20 years and file Posesion adversa paperwork they can own the land in bad faith and legally take it. Or at least thats my understanding of the law.

If its a family member who pays taxes, and has some kind of legitimate claim they can take it in 10 years. I understand now why some people are paying taxes for properties that they don't own.