No notice of debt?

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PJT

Guest
Two years ago, a family member sold an empty lot she owned since 2004, located next to her house in a residential. The buyer recently began to construct on it and was stopped by the residential administrators because of “unpaid residential maintenance” fees of over RD$ 40,000 for this lot. The buyer is upset to say the least.

The family member at/near the time of the sale had gone to the administrators to ask if there were any outstanding bills/debts, if any, for the property. Their response was there is no record. They will investigate. There was no further response from them. At the time of the sale of the empty lot there were no liens on the title. It was clean. Note, it was before or just after the sale the administration/ownership of the residential had changed hands.

For all the years this family member had the two properties, the residential maintenance bill for her house in the “adjacent” developed lot did promptly arrive there and was paid immediately. No maintenance bill or debt notice for her next-door undeveloped lot was ever delivered to her house.

It is the belief in the residential community the new administrator is vigorously going after owners for fees, real or otherwise, it perceives as not billed or collected by the previous administration.

The question is: are the new residential administrators legally capable to do this, embargo construction and bill owners who were never aware or notified of their supposed debt?



Regards,

PJT
 
C

Cdn_Gringo

Guest
Anyone who owns property (developed or not) in a "residential" ((your term) knows that there are fees due periodically to the community. If you are not billed for them, you need to ask and get any waiver of fees in writing. You need to keep all of your receipts for years after you sell a property just for this type of situation.

The answer to your question, yes, the new administrators can and have put an embargo on the property which needs to be cleared before development can proceed. What will be required to clear the embargo is money - either to a legal process or to the administrators. $RD 40,000 is a little less than $1000 USD, pay it, get a receipt and a written statement that all outstanding debts are cleared as of a specific date and move on.
 
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jimmythegreek

Guest
PJT said:
Two years ago, a family member sold an empty lot she owned since 2004, located next to her house in a residential. The buyer recently began to construct on it and was stopped by the residential administrators because of “unpaid residential maintenance” fees of over RD$ 40,000 for this lot. The buyer is upset to say the least.

The family member at/near the time of the sale had gone to the administrators to ask if there were any outstanding bills/debts, if any, for the property. Their response was there is no record. They will investigate. There was no further response from them. At the time of the sale of the empty lot there were no liens on the title. It was clean. Note, it was before or just after the sale the administration/ownership of the residential had changed hands.

For all the years this family member had the two properties, the residential maintenance bill for her house in the “adjacent” developed lot did promptly arrive there and was paid immediately. No maintenance bill or debt notice for her next-door undeveloped lot was ever delivered to her house.

It is the belief in the residential community the new administrator is vigorously going after owners for fees, real or otherwise, it perceives as not billed or collected by the previous administration.

The question is: are the new residential administrators legally capable to do this, embargo construction and bill owners who were never aware or notified of their supposed debt?



Regards,

PJT
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Quick answer is yes. Problem is that when you buy any property here one needs to do a certification of the Title and also request a certification of the monthly association fees from the presiding Administrator.

Another thing you should note is that a lot of these condos with directiva and adminstrator are a real mess with small groups taking control of the property and in many cases violating their own rules to do so. LOL.

I would probably just pay the debt of $40K, but require a certification of payment of the monthly fees to the day from this administrator upon payment so there is no legal issue here.
 
J

jimmythegreek

Guest
Cdn_Gringo said:
Anyone who owns property (developed or not) in a "residential" ((your term) knows that there are fees due periodically to the community. If you are not billed for them, you need to ask and get any waiver of fees in writing. You need to keep all of your receipts for years after you sell a property just for this type of situation.

The answer to your question, yes, the new administrators can and have put an embargo on the property which needs to be cleared before development can proceed. What will be required to clear the embargo is money - either to a legal process or to the administrators. $RD 40,000 is a little less than $1000 USD, pay it, get a receipt and a written statement that all outstanding debts are cleared as of a specific date and move on.
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BTW-It works the other way as well. A property owner can place a opposition of signatures to the bank account of the property, thereby effectively forcing the bank to freeze the account until the legal dispute is resolved.
 
D

Dr_Taylor

Guest
Cdn_Gringo said:
Anyone who owns property (developed or not) in a "residential" ((your term) knows that there are fees due periodically to the community. If you are not billed for them, you need to ask and get any waiver of fees in writing. You need to keep all of your receipts for years after you sell a property just for this type of situation.

The answer to your question, yes, the new administrators can and have put an embargo on the property which needs to be cleared before development can proceed. What will be required to clear the embargo is money - either to a legal process or to the administrators. $RD 40,000 is a little less than $1000 USD, pay it, get a receipt and a written statement that all outstanding debts are cleared as of a specific date and move on.
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I agree with this. The RD$40,000 pesos is far less than the cost to fight or challenge this action. Get the notice of satisfaction, or whatever they use here, that certifies that the account is paid and current. As a general rule: One NEVER discards such notices. I still have them for my student loans from years ago as well as from when the bank satisfies a loan during the remortgage process. Keep these.
 
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