Q — In a rare triumph of the rule of law in Costa Rica, Sheldon Haseltine won his battle to remove a group of squatters from land in Herradura that he was legally given in 2007 by his late brother-in-law.
He actually won the case in court years ago. Still, the squatters appealed up to the Supreme Court, which has now finally upheld the lower court’s decision, namely that Haseltine’s company, Ivanhoe Investments S.A., owns legal title to the land and that the squatters did not meet the criteria for ownership under Agrarian Law.
Excerpts from the ruling, in English translation:
“…the appellants knew the property had a registered owner, because that was indicated on their
own plans…”
“it does not appear that [one of the squatters] entered the property due to a clear state of necessity to use the property for subsistence”
“…it was not proven that [two of the squatters] occupied the property out of a genuine state of necessity—an indispensable prerequisite for special agrarian adverse possession— since both appeared to have defined occupations—private accountant and secretary, and in another document [one of the squatters] even identified herself as a business executive—in addition to other documentary evidence incompatible with the status of a possessor in a state of need from the perspective of agrarian law.”
I have not named the squatters due to the perilously broad laws governing defamation in this country. Haseltine was once sued for such and told by the judge: “The truth is not a defense.”
That case was dismissed, but at considerable cost.
Haseltine has also received death threats in relation to his cases and was once encouraged to flee his property at the point of a machete.
However, I have included the Expediente number to the Supreme Court’s decision at the end of this article for those who wish to read it in full in the original Spanish.
Burn After Reading – Or Before
Apparently there is a premium on space in the Records Department and the staff have not
all caught on to digitization.Ivanhoe owns title to several other undeveloped lots. Another case is still pending due to an eccentricity in the law, or a devious trick, depending on whom you ask. Haseltine had filed a civil case when his hair was still brown and seemed poised to win when the prosecutor decided to criminally charge the defense lawyer for forging the title. The charge was justified, and the State eventually won.
However, Haseltine observed the defendant leaving the courtroom after the verdict and suspects the sentence was never imposed. What seemed to matter was the quirk in the law, which pends civil cases for criminal ones.
Unfortunately for Haseltine, the criminal case took over ten years. After the verdict, Haseltine fled the courtroom almost as quickly as the convicted lawyer, rushing to the clerk to have the civil case reinstated so he could finally get his other lots back. But to his horror, he was informed that files were only kept for ten years and his had been burned.
Apparently there is a premium on space in the Records Department and the staff have not
all caught on to digitization.
Haseltine was therefore pleasantly surprised last month to receive a judgment from the Juzgado Agrario de Puteranas that stated:
“…due to the existence of criminal-law annotations regarding the property subject to litigation, the issuance of the ruling was suspended in accordance with Article 201 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Law No. 7130, currently repealed). Subsequently, the case file was sent to the Judicial Archive for custody, where—according to information currently available to this Office—it was destroyed. This circumstance is particularly serious, given that, apparently, the case file had not been concluded nor did it fall under the criteria permitting its disposal;…”
Fortunately, Haseltine kept a copy of the file and the civil case can now, after more than a decade’s delay, proceed. (That Expediente number is also appended at the end of this article.)
Don Sheldon Quixote
In her new novel, The Museum of Lunacy, Roan St. John catalogs institutional corruption in a fictional Central American country not dissimilar to ours. While Q recently published yet another article touting Costa Rica as a top retirement destination, many property owners have been so frustrated by crooked notaries and lawyers and the lugubrious court system that they gave up on “paradise” and returned to their native country. Ironically, Haseltine never planned to retire here.
A successful restaurateur in New York and Old York, whose life is the subject of my new book, Andy Warhol Ate Here, he thought he was going to Puerto Rico because his then wife, Janine Milne, has been fighting, unsuccessfully, to get her properties back since then. Haseltine has taken on her case as well, since 1990.
But even with these recent victories, Haseltine will probably never recoup what he has spent in legal fees over the years.
But his crusade was never about money, or even land, but about principle and justice. He says he hopes these judicial decisions will lead to positive outcomes for other expats, as well as for Ticos who lack the resources to fight a decades-long battle.
Haseltine’s YouTube video from 2013 describing his crusade has been viewed over a million
times on various platforms, and he is often recognized on the street as “Don Sheldon.” And last week President Laura Fernández was asked if she would support the squatters and, to Haseltine’s delight, she answered that this was a matter for the Judicial branch, not the Executive.
Well, the Judiciary has spoken, to the relief of property owners throughout Costa Rica.
- SALA PRIMERA, Exp: 02-160054-0417-AG, Res. Nº 001554-S1-2026
- JUZGADO AGRARIO DE PUNTARENAS, EXPEDIENTE: 08-160099-0642-AG – 6.
Andy Warhol Ate Here: The Story of a Restaurant and its Outlandish Owner is available on
Amazon.
