2024-01-10 21:29:51
Renting a home, apartment or any property has become a very profitable mechanism for investing. In addition to ensuring a monthly income, the appreciation that housing has had in recent years has made buying to rent an increasingly attractive and profitable business for many Colombians.
Although it can be a great opportunity, leasing a property also requires many responsibilities and commitments that, if not attended to, can lead to the loss of the right to the property. Regarding this, the regulations indicate that there is a case in which this can happen, in what cases is it? We tell you what the law says.
Can a tenant become the owner of a property?
In Colombia, there is a particular event that allows the tenant of a home to claim the right to become possessor and owner of a property. To better understand this case, the consulting lawyer in real estate law and specialist in commercial law, Leonardo Carmona, explains it with the following example.
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An older man, following retiring, decides to rent out his home and go live in the United States. This person leaves a tenant in charge of his property and explains that the rent payment must be deposited monthly into a certain bank account.
Time passes and the tenant falls into default, but, seeing that no one collects from him, he thinks that the owner of the house died and then he hopes that, soon, a family member will come to collect the outstanding bills. However, another year passes and the tenant is forced to make repairs to the house and even pay the property tax, since the owner does not appear.
In this example, if the tenant spends 10 years alone in the property, taking care of the expenses of the house and without the owner appearing, this person can claim his rights over the home. This is determined by the Civil Code, in article 2532, which states that this is the minimum time for a prescription of a property to be recognized.
What is the prescription and why is it important to keep it in mind?
Through a concept, the Council of State explains that prescription is a phenomenon through which a right can be acquired or extinguished simply by the passage of time. The purpose of this legal action is to have extinguished a right that, because it has not been exercised, it can be presumed that the owner has abandoned it and, therefore, loses it.
According to Leonardo Carmona, in the real estate field, when a tenant pays the rental costs, he is recognizing that there is a foreign domain and, whether 20, 30 or 60 years pass, he can never become the owner of the property.
However, when a tenant stops paying this lease, he begins to take charge of the internal expenses of the home and no one initiates a process to remove him, it means that no one is interested in that property, so the tenant would start with possession . If the same situation continues following 10 years, this person can advance the process to officially become the owner of the property.
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