By Sergio
Castillo and Rosa Monge
Special to A.M. Costa Rica
At the end of the 90´s, real estate sales in Costa Rican
coasts went up. Foreign corporations, exploiting Costa
Rica´s Central and North Pacific beautiful areas, became
the clients interested in developing touristic
complexes, and large hotels chains got important land in
beautiful areas, also some individual people acquired
land in important locations.
Mr. Harrison came to Costa Rica in 1994, to explore the
country and look for a place to retire. In 1996, he
bought some land in Samara, Nicoya, Guanacaste, the
place he had dreamed of for him and his wife Sarah, a
while later they built their home and started living
Nicoya style.
After four years of living in Costa Rica, Sarah was
diagnosed with breast cancer. Although the professional
health services offered in Costa Rica, the couple
decided to go to Houston for treatment, and during that
time their Costa Rican house was taken care of by a
private local guard. Paying house maintenance fees
became difficult as Sarah´s illness continued. So Tim
and Sarah decided to sell the house in Nicoya, moved to
Houston to take better care of Sarah´s health.
Tim made a quick trip to Costa Rica to meet an Italian,
Mr. Salustro, recommended to him as a Realtor who could
negotiate 100 percent of their home sale. He had lived
in Santa Cruz Guanacaste for more than twenty years, and
promoted himself as an escrow agent. Tim met him and
signed a contract with Salustro for his services. Two
months later Salustro told Tim he had a client offering
$400K for the house, $25K less than the original price.
Tim accepted the offer because of need. Next day Salutro
told Tim he already got all the money, and because Tim
had authorized Salustro to do so, there was no problem
to put it in the name of the new owner. That is Tim only
had to wait in Houston to receive his money from his
agent.
Five days passed and Tim saw no money from Salustro.
Salustro told Tim the transference could not be made
because of existing problems between the bank entities.
The time passed and the money never arrived. The excuses
were more frequent and contradictory. A year and ten
months later Salustro told Tim he would not give him the
money because he no longer had it.
The Harrison´s experience lets us know important details
that make us think of the existence of misappropriation,
which is regulated by article 223 of the Criminal Code.
It is a crime where those who receive assets under the
obligation of returning them, but do not do it, are
sanctioned according to the norm that establishes that
the defendant has to be notified giving him the time
frame of five days to return what he misappropriated,
and if he does not do it the process continues.
As always, I invite people to reflect, to get to know
those you trust. Those you put your business in their
hands, but above all the importance of getting to know
their rights in our country.
For more information on this case, Mr. Castillo and Ms.
Monge can be reached at Solving Problem Center, emails:
problemsolvingcentercr@outlook.com
or secastilloq@abogados.or.cr
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expressed by the authors are the sole and exclusive
responsibility of the senders and do not necessarily
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