Tenant trying to legally steal our apartment in Caracas

[NickD 202]

What a headache this place has been to us, wife purchased it in 1989 as sort of a refuge to get away from her physically abusing ex, was brand new, and she furnished it. In a very nice complex, guarded gate, modern, underground parking, well kept, and currently worth about $175,000.00. She elected not to sell it before coming here, if she did, couldn't bring the money with her anyway unless she went to the black market and would have lost about 60% of it. So she rented it out, got an attorney with a very long legal contract, each page has a fingerprint on it and covers all details. Rent money was to be deposited into a bank account she set up.

Problems from the very start, her renter, a single mom, very heavy set, wasn't making rent payments, we hired an attorney and got two years rent out of her, but then the rent payments stopped again. According to Venezuelan law, we are not permitted to increase the rent to keep up with inflation, that is killing a lot of landlords as some own the entire building, we just have one apartment.

Wife has close friends in that complex, in her contract, her tenant is suppose to make the maintenance payments directly to the maintenance company and if not, they can foreclose, we learned through her friends the foreclosure procedure was in process. We flew down last November and made those payments directly to stop that. I did get back three years of rent from her, but in two checks, each for 18 months, but she made the second check out postdated for two weeks. She also agreed verbally to move out in December. First check was good, second one bounced, but we did hire an attorney to look out after our interest while we were there, highly recommended by another of her friends in the real estate business.

First obstacle we ran into, is there tribunal went on strike for all of December and January, Venezuela has a nice system of paying under the table to get action done, our attorney filed an eviction notice and what they call kidnapping, where the judge and an assistant, plus a moving van goes out to the apartment, changes the locks on the doors, and moves the tenants possessions to a storage place. I paid for that, but this woman was stupid either, she with her attorney did the same thing by paying a small portion of her rent to another court so blocked us. She has no intention of moving, I tried to be nice. We can't do anything with that apartment until we get her out. And I am told as long as she pays just a small fraction of her rent, we are screwed.

According to my wife's friends, this woman is taking many trips and living quite the life style, but not paying the rent, she is a criminal in my eyes, and have no idea of how to get rid of her outside of flying down and perhaps physically throwing her out, but might spend the rest of my days in a miserable Venezuelan jail. Wife depends on me for legal matters, pretty good here, but there I am dead lost.

Not so hot in this country either, my youngest son was hit, woman that hit him was ticketed for running a stop sign, her insurance company told us he was 30% guilty for being there and that is all they would pay on his claim to get his card fixed. We took his insurance company alone with her attorney to small claims court, our appointment was at 9:00 AM. Thought we would go in and get out of there, but was some odd twenty cases ahead of us.

Each one of those cases dealt with landlord tenant problems, and each time, the judge said, I can't throw these people out in the cold, work something out. Landlords were screaming, we have to pay loan interest and property taxes on this place, I have to work a second job just to make these payments while his tenant is living off me for free. Judge has no mercy on the landlords. So much for buying property, even in the USA to rent it out.

When our case came up, the claims adjusters tried to convince the judge my son's car wasn't worth that much by printing out copies he got off of ebay off the cheapest piles of junk he could find, I countered him with the Kelly Blue book value of my son's car. Then the attorney tried to say my son was guilty 30% by being there, the judge laughed at him. We won, plus the insurance company had to pay all the court cost. But thank God we didn't go in there as landlords.

Do you ever feel like killing people? Did show my wife how badly I got screwed in my divorce, it's all history now, we have each other and doing fine. And that she would have paid more for that apartment if she did rent it for her refuge then by purchasing it, so we can let it go. But she wants to fight has that woman is really screwing her. I am lost where to go from here. Both of our ex's were parasites to the nth degree, and we got rid of them. I got mine to agree to a one time payoff on alimony, but only took five years of my life to pay off those debts, went quite a bit quicker without that parasite living here spending my money faster than I could earn it.

[Danno 1,228]

Am I mixed up? I thought you were a liberal?

And you want to kick this lady out of her (your) house?

That she has not paid every dime of rent should be secondary to your concern for her as a HUMAN!

I hope she finds some left-wing liberal "legal rights" organization to help he with her legal case as not everyone can afford to hire attorneys like you. This way she can work-the-system, just like rich landlords do.

I'm sure the economy in her country is even worse than the current USA, are you sure you want to throw this woman out? People have a right to safe affordable housing

Obviously she is doing the best she can and here you are considering using back-channel legal methods to harm this woman.

WWOD (what would Obama do)

Tsk, Tsk.

*Pulling your leg...... just a little.

[sara..... 371]

i dont know the law in that country but i know that in pakistan u dont want to rent to anyone longer than about five years cuz there is some old law on the books were the tenet can get ur property........im not sure how that works but u might wanna look into it

sara

[NickD 202]

Am I mixed up? I thought you were a liberal?

And you want to kick this lady out of her (your) house?

That she has not paid every dime of rent should be secondary to your concern for her as a HUMAN!

I hope she finds some left-wing liberal "legal rights" organization to help he with her legal case as not everyone can afford to hire attorneys like you. This way she can work-the-system, just like rich landlords do.

I'm sure the economy in her country is even worse than the current USA, are you sure you want to throw this woman out? People have a right to safe affordable housing

Obviously she is doing the best she can and here you are considering using back-channel legal methods to harm this woman.

WWOD (what would Obama do)

Tsk, Tsk.

*Pulling your leg...... just a little.

I agree, I am terrible and deserved to be shot, but somehow it's not affecting my sleep at night. Entire legal system in Venezuela is back channel or under the table and becomes a question of throwing away good money after bad. Venezuela or Chavez claims a 30% inflation rate for last year. Since we were there the year before, seeing more like a 400% inflation rate. And this poor woman does have enough money to back channel as well.

My wife did work for Johnson & Johnson, you probably heard of them, the Band-Aid people. Except they make more than Band-Aids, like over 5,000 different products in the medical field. Her job was turning out to be a nightmare as each different product had a Chavez imposed tariff on it. We met with several of her long time co-workers that were all recently laid off with no other jobs to find and only a skeleton crew left at J&J. Not sure if my wife would have been laid off, she was the executive assistant and was running that place when the GM was gone. But it's a sad situation where the middleclass is being murdered.

We were there last November when the gubernatorial elections took place, Chavez lost a lot of ground during that election, but won is right to be re-elected this last week. Maybe the people want to see him hang himself with his policies. No motivation to work, just get handouts, and we got it first hand that his education and healthcare is nothing more than a very bad joke. And what he is giving doesn't go very far at the grocery store.

We can see that happening here, not a good feeling. Our go around in that small claims court was four years ago when we had plenty of jobs, renters were just to lazy to work, those kind of people do not deserve awards. But that is just my opinion as I watch this country go to hell.

[HAL 9000 96]

But wait up Nick... is an inflationary clause set up in that lease?

About protecting your señora's property... that is something that anyone should have a legal right to enforce. I believe that as long as you don't play the imposing 'gringo' act as some in that present court system may try to paint you in one way or another... you and your missus will eventually be able to properly rectify things.

[NickD 202]

But wait up Nick... is an inflationary clause set up in that lease?

About protecting your señora's property... that is something that anyone should have a legal right to enforce. I believe that as long as you don't play the imposing 'gringo' act as some in that present court system may try to paint you in one way or another... you and your missus will eventually be able to properly rectify things.

Colombia is a much better country, perhaps why Chavez is trying to overthrow it, encountered a lot of corruption in both the courts and police in Venezuela, it's their way and I am in no position to change that. One scheme would be to find the name of our tenants' attorney, and give him a couple of bucks under the table.

Wife's roots are actually in Colombia, we even have a second home there and can get my cup of coffee and cinnamon bun for well under a buck, a cinnamon bun was over five bucks in Venezuela so switched to arepas. Just would like to sever all ties with Venezuela as would many Venezuelans.

Like to meet you someday, next time we are in Chicago.

[HAL 9000 96]

But wait up Nick... is an inflationary clause set up in that lease?

About protecting your señora's property... that is something that anyone should have a legal right to enforce. I believe that as long as you don't play the imposing 'gringo' act as some in that present court system may try to paint you in one way or another... you and your missus will eventually be able to properly rectify things.

Colombia is a much better country, perhaps why Chavez is trying to overthrow it, encountered a lot of corruption in both the courts and police in Venezuela, it's their way and I am in no position to change that. One scheme would be to find the name of our tenants' attorney, and give him a couple of bucks under the table.

Wife's roots are actually in Colombia, we even have a second home there and can get my cup of coffee and cinnamon bun for well under a buck, a cinnamon bun was over five bucks in Venezuela so switched to arepas. Just would like to sever all ties with Venezuela as would many Venezuelans.

Like to meet you someday, next time we are in Chicago.

Just let me know about town.

FWIW... I'd rather go shopping in Venezuela since everything tends to be hella more expensive in Colombia. Check out the San Andresitos in Colombia...

Colombia's corruption record is on par with what Venezuela's used to be pre-Chavez, to be more complete with the honesty there. I guess it has something to do with rich folk keeping themselves in power versus a monkey-man trying to do the same but for anyone that plays his party line.

Perhaps you should go down and talk to the judge about how chavista you really are. Mention that if it were up to you you'd let the inquilina stay for free... but the evil economy under Mr. Danger in the past destroyed your ability to maintain a rent-free home in Caracas and that lady whom thinks that the revolution yields deserving benefits only as long as she doesn't want to work to sustain her standard of living is quite against the revolution.

[NickD 202]

Also gave up watching TV when down there with practically every station showing this pig faced clown pounding on a podium. Didn't have any problems telling people, I do not like GWB, but haven't been back there to be critical of his devilish replacement. But Chavez is also changing his tune about establishing relations with the USA with reduced oil prices, wants Exxon and Conoco to come back and maybe a piece of our stimulus program.

When was the last time you shopped in Venezuela?

My brother-in-law has a coffee bean farm about 300 miles north of Bogota, and too bad our trade agreement with Colombia did not go through, I saw an average of 30% higher than here on US goods, like food. We are not charging a tariff on either coffee or roses.

Not much going on today nor tommorow, sin days, everybody has off before lent.

[HAL 9000 96]

Also gave up watching TV when down there with practically every station showing this pig faced clown pounding on a podium. Didn't have any problems telling people, I do not like GWB, but haven't been back there to be critical of his devilish replacement. But Chavez is also changing his tune about establishing relations with the USA with reduced oil prices, wants Exxon and Conoco to come back and maybe a piece of our stimulus program.

When was the last time you shopped in Venezuela?

My brother-in-law has a coffee bean farm about 300 miles north of Bogota, and too bad our trade agreement with Colombia did not go through, I saw an average of 30% higher than here on US goods, like food. We are not charging a tariff on either coffee or roses.

Not much going on today nor tommorow, sin days, everybody has off before lent.

Not until labor protections go into effect in Colombia will we see an actual trade agreement. Workers down there under the current system of doing things are not just expendable... but do not deserve any kind of protection at all and would have been further squashed if the TLC had gone through as written.

You can do day shopping in Venezuela by crossing from Cucutá. You'd be amazed to see the huge lines of Colombians crossing over to buy gas, food, etc across the border. Kind of reminded me of Brits going to France to do their shopping. I went over last trip in July of last year. Saved something like 50% on stuff like Cocosette.

[NickD 202]

Also gave up watching TV when down there with practically every station showing this pig faced clown pounding on a podium. Didn't have any problems telling people, I do not like GWB, but haven't been back there to be critical of his devilish replacement. But Chavez is also changing his tune about establishing relations with the USA with reduced oil prices, wants Exxon and Conoco to come back and maybe a piece of our stimulus program.

When was the last time you shopped in Venezuela?

My brother-in-law has a coffee bean farm about 300 miles north of Bogota, and too bad our trade agreement with Colombia did not go through, I saw an average of 30% higher than here on US goods, like food. We are not charging a tariff on either coffee or roses.

Not much going on today nor tommorow, sin days, everybody has off before lent.

Not until labor protections go into effect in Colombia will we see an actual trade agreement. Workers down there under the current system of doing things are not just expendable... but do not deserve any kind of protection at all and would have been further squashed if the TLC had gone through as written.

You can do day shopping in Venezuela by crossing from Cucutá. You'd be amazed to see the huge lines of Colombians crossing over to buy gas, food, etc across the border. Kind of reminded me of Brits going to France to do their shopping. I went over last trip in July of last year. Saved something like 50% on stuff like Cocosette.

Don't blame Colombians for crossing the border to buy gas, we could fill our tank for under a buck, even less than half that price when we sold US bucks for Bolivars. Tools were totally outrageous, about ten times the price as here. Had to buy some US AC outlets, they use a mix of European and US, paid 6 bucks for an outlet that I can buy here for 39 cents, everything else except gas and arepa flour was way overpriced, over three bucks for a quart of milk, etc. The year before last, a prescription drug was less than half of the price as here, last November was over twice the price as here. Course there, you don't need a prescription to buy just about any drug, wonder why we have that here? Maybe because our doctors want to charge 300 bucks for some kind of rash cream that only cost a couple of bucks.