And in some cases, what happened in the past is that finca workers would get authorisation from the big boss/owner, to build a shack/house---- usually roadside.
No legal documents, no nothing.
While "villages " sprouted up.
Fast forward 30 odd years.
The original big boss who allowed these houses built on his land, has died/become senile or whatnot.
His sons or grandkids may-- or may not--- have taken over the family businesses
The sons or grandkids of the original finca workers may--- or may not --- still work at the same finca.
Add to that children, grand children, entitled bastards-- literally-- who all want a piece of the pie and it becomes a total clusterfukc.
Even though the houses do not have land titles, they still have a foot to stand on in front of the dominican law.
Not saying it is the case in this particular situation, but here in wonderland it is always a bit more complicated than " LOw liFe bUms bAd ".
And then add to that, that there might someone who wants to sell a piece of land, but isn't allowed by the rest of the "family members" but then does so anyways. And add to that, that here it's quite normal to have 10+ children that nobody knows of, so then those "reappear" and then the fight is on.... It's a very interesting country, to say the least.
Well, to bring back to main subject, what happened in La Cienaga here in Sosua/Cabarete. After seeing the local news. It's not a question about property of land, and it actually doesn't concern "main" part of La Cienaga. But the thing is, there is a part of La Sienaga that is actually like a swamp, or a lagoon and part of land close to it that is protected property by law. So people in their stupidity (which is truly is) have for a couple of years(not that long time, but more than 1 year but less than 5) been building on that, and basically building ontop of water. And because that's protected land and also because it's quite dangerous when there is flooding and such, they have been forced away.
So this is something else.
And to answer Big: Well you would be surprised how gullible some people are. There are those who just because their pastor or neighbour or whoever they trust says something, no matter how STUPID it is, they believe it. I remember when zika and chikungunya (spelling?) was news here a couple of years ago. People actually believed that it was something in the air that the US government had spread to infect them. I had a lot of "interesting" conversations with people, that firmly believed that.
So just because you think it's improbable that someone wouldn't think that doing a "street corner deal" they wouldn't be entitled to the land, I would just say, Good for you, but there are those people, I've seen it myself.