Costa Rica Real Estate News – Make sure you know the laws so this does not happen to you. Hundreds of campesino (peasant) squatters are celebrating a great victory. They managed to expropriate 425 hectares from Dutch entrepreneurs, after a fight that lasted over two years, beginning on April 8th, 2011.
On that date, 316 families without land of their own took over the farm in Medio Queso de Los Chiles, in the northern zone in Costa Rica. The land was under a lease to a Costa Rican. The families made makeshift housing and claimed the land, on the premise that the owners weren’t producing on it.
The man leasing the land insisted he did produce, and made $2 million in improvements to the farm. The group was evicted on multiple occasions. These altercations with police turned violent, at times. Animals were killed, belongings were burnt, and the situation got international attention when a police officer was recorded telling private guards to “shoot to kill.”
The squatters returned time after time and it worked out for them. The Rural Development Institute (INDER) issued resolution 032-2013, ordering that the land be given to them. Over two years, the campesinos got support from many Costa Ricans.
It was stated in the media that “this agreement is a triumph for rural families of that community,” and that “the successful expropriation sets a precedent for struggling campesinos in the country, it shows that INDER is legally qualified to expropriate and distribute land to campesinos who need it.”
