As many of you know, I recently purchased a rather large farm near Puerto Plata. Special thanks to ALL you DR1 ers who made this possible with your highly informative insites on ALL aspects of Dominican life and culture.
Robert for making the website possible.....Hillbilly for his no nonsense advice....Grahame for financial insights....Scott, Hmmm for something or other
Dawnwill for being my true kindred spirit with whom I can freely discuss anything.....and hundreds more
My intent is to spend the rest of my life developing this farm into a mostly self suffecient, state of the art production facility for ALL MANNER of food products, fruits, vegetables, meat products to include fresh fish fillet.
My object is to thoroughly enjoy my life, demonstrate how to most effectively utilize dominican farmland while wasting NOTHING and being a boon to my neighbors and community. (Not necessarily for profit)
Soooooooo.......my friends, I need your help and advice...BIGTIME !!
for many years to come...... :classic:
Immediate questions:
I have seen used (probably rejected for further ocean use) steel shipping containers being utilized at construction sites, etc. for secure storage.
Where do I go and whom do I contact to possibly buy or rent one or two of these? What price range do they usually sell for?
My plan is to ship one or two semi loads of household goods, tools and farm equipment of ALL descriptions by container in the near future. Hopefully, I qualify for duty free exemption as my initial residency will be complete in a week or so and I now own a rather large farm in DR. PLEASE...PM me with any and all comments, tips, referrals for custom brokers, etc. MUCH APPRECIATED !
Is there a KUBOTA farm tractor dealer in Santiago? I need one or two large, new four wheel drive farm tractors (50 HP or larger) with end loader, bush hogs, disc plows, box blades etc.
I need one new Dihatsu diesel farm hydraulic dump truck like is commonly seen all over DR. Where and how do you suggest I get the best price?
The farm is in four parcels, all adjoining, with excellent old survey maps dating back as early as 1932. I am a civil engineer so I can tell you that these maps are expertly done with great precision. A month ago I hired a dominican engineer to survey the outer bounderies of my property, locate and mark all turning points with concrete or rebar point markers and draw one new survey map which is to be recorded in public records. Having run a survey crew for several years in Florida, I expected and thought it understood that he was to accurately reestablish the old historic points, set new markers where old ones could not be found, etc. NOT EVEN CLOSE !!
His first move was to hire my man from the farm who has lived there for some three years to "show him the boundaries of the farm". This engineer then proceeds to set markers based on directions from my farm hand. He then plots with computer assistance the "new" corners and turns on the first draft version of a survey map. At my insistence, he then overlays with computer assistance, his new map with info from the old maps. WELL HELL !! The lines miss each other from a few feet to as much as two or three hundred feet. Further inspection reveals that he has effectively given away a couple miles of prime river frontage by moving the property line some 900 feet back from the river where the old surveys show property line as middle of river. Over 60 or 70 years some three miles of fence has been moved about 50 to 100 feet onto my property. His explanation is that, "it's all my farm hand's fault because he showed him the wrong property lines." The engineer speaks NO ENGLISH and I speak very limited Spanish....but with a translater we had a rather heated discussion and he agrees to "do it my way". My way is to set duplicate markers agreeing with the historic surveys. So far I have paid him half of the 110,000 peso fee agreed upon. I very much need ACCURATE markers along which to build probably $30,000 worth of new boundary fence.
QUESTIONS:
Am I obligated to pay this YAHOO registered engineer for the priveledge of survey mapping my farm based on what "my farm hand" tells him instead of accepted engineering practice of reading and reestablishing the clearly defined historic points for which I am paying him?
His classic comments have been. "Juan showed me the wrong line !"
"What is your problem? You always have the old historic survey maps to prove you own the land !" Effectively, this #&&#&&# is setting me up for a case in court in the future attempting to disprove his inaccurate new survey map by utilizing the old historic maps when my neighbors try to claim some 150 to 200 tareas of my land utilizing the new survey map on public record.
(It's not on public record yet.....Thank God !....but would have been had I not caught on to what he was doing!)
Thanks for ANY thoughts or observations.......I must soon return to DR to see what he has done........IF ANYTHING !
Caribee........................Lloyd irate:
Robert for making the website possible.....Hillbilly for his no nonsense advice....Grahame for financial insights....Scott, Hmmm for something or other
Dawnwill for being my true kindred spirit with whom I can freely discuss anything.....and hundreds more
My intent is to spend the rest of my life developing this farm into a mostly self suffecient, state of the art production facility for ALL MANNER of food products, fruits, vegetables, meat products to include fresh fish fillet.
My object is to thoroughly enjoy my life, demonstrate how to most effectively utilize dominican farmland while wasting NOTHING and being a boon to my neighbors and community. (Not necessarily for profit)
Soooooooo.......my friends, I need your help and advice...BIGTIME !!
for many years to come...... :classic:
Immediate questions:
I have seen used (probably rejected for further ocean use) steel shipping containers being utilized at construction sites, etc. for secure storage.
Where do I go and whom do I contact to possibly buy or rent one or two of these? What price range do they usually sell for?
My plan is to ship one or two semi loads of household goods, tools and farm equipment of ALL descriptions by container in the near future. Hopefully, I qualify for duty free exemption as my initial residency will be complete in a week or so and I now own a rather large farm in DR. PLEASE...PM me with any and all comments, tips, referrals for custom brokers, etc. MUCH APPRECIATED !
Is there a KUBOTA farm tractor dealer in Santiago? I need one or two large, new four wheel drive farm tractors (50 HP or larger) with end loader, bush hogs, disc plows, box blades etc.
I need one new Dihatsu diesel farm hydraulic dump truck like is commonly seen all over DR. Where and how do you suggest I get the best price?
The farm is in four parcels, all adjoining, with excellent old survey maps dating back as early as 1932. I am a civil engineer so I can tell you that these maps are expertly done with great precision. A month ago I hired a dominican engineer to survey the outer bounderies of my property, locate and mark all turning points with concrete or rebar point markers and draw one new survey map which is to be recorded in public records. Having run a survey crew for several years in Florida, I expected and thought it understood that he was to accurately reestablish the old historic points, set new markers where old ones could not be found, etc. NOT EVEN CLOSE !!
His first move was to hire my man from the farm who has lived there for some three years to "show him the boundaries of the farm". This engineer then proceeds to set markers based on directions from my farm hand. He then plots with computer assistance the "new" corners and turns on the first draft version of a survey map. At my insistence, he then overlays with computer assistance, his new map with info from the old maps. WELL HELL !! The lines miss each other from a few feet to as much as two or three hundred feet. Further inspection reveals that he has effectively given away a couple miles of prime river frontage by moving the property line some 900 feet back from the river where the old surveys show property line as middle of river. Over 60 or 70 years some three miles of fence has been moved about 50 to 100 feet onto my property. His explanation is that, "it's all my farm hand's fault because he showed him the wrong property lines." The engineer speaks NO ENGLISH and I speak very limited Spanish....but with a translater we had a rather heated discussion and he agrees to "do it my way". My way is to set duplicate markers agreeing with the historic surveys. So far I have paid him half of the 110,000 peso fee agreed upon. I very much need ACCURATE markers along which to build probably $30,000 worth of new boundary fence.
QUESTIONS:
Am I obligated to pay this YAHOO registered engineer for the priveledge of survey mapping my farm based on what "my farm hand" tells him instead of accepted engineering practice of reading and reestablishing the clearly defined historic points for which I am paying him?
His classic comments have been. "Juan showed me the wrong line !"
"What is your problem? You always have the old historic survey maps to prove you own the land !" Effectively, this #&&#&&# is setting me up for a case in court in the future attempting to disprove his inaccurate new survey map by utilizing the old historic maps when my neighbors try to claim some 150 to 200 tareas of my land utilizing the new survey map on public record.
(It's not on public record yet.....Thank God !....but would have been had I not caught on to what he was doing!)
Thanks for ANY thoughts or observations.......I must soon return to DR to see what he has done........IF ANYTHING !
Caribee........................Lloyd irate: