Businessman Buys Lot Inside San José Municipality
Incredible! Beginning tomorrow, a portion of the lands that houses the offices of the Municipalidad de San José on Avenida 10 will have a new owner, who plans to build an office building to add to his real estate holdings.

Three weeks ago, local businessman Guillermo Sanabria, bought the 150 square metre (1.600 square feet) lot, located smack in the middle of the Municipal lot and is now used by municipal employees to park their cars.

Sanabria, owner of Salsa 54 disco in downtown San José, bought the lot - finca Nº 275371000 as registered in the Registro Público (public registry). for ¢27 million colones (us$52.000 dollars) from Ricardo Rigg Gondrez.

The lot, owned by Álvaro Aguilar Badilla was expropriated in 1974. Aguilar, before the expropriation process was completed sold the land to Rigg, who appealed the expropriation and 20 years later won the case, and promptly turned around and sold the lot to Sanabria.

Sanabria said that, along with a judge from the Juzgado Civil de Mayor Cuantía and the Fuerza Pública (police), he will tomorrow take possession of the land and expel anyone that is occupying it, municipal authorities liking it or not.
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However, the case won't end there. You see, the lot is land locked and has no access to a public street. The only public access is now part of the railway and Sanabria says he will have to negotiate with the municipality to obtain some type of access to his land." I am not sure how I am going to do it, we will have to negotiate", said Sanabria, who will have no choice but to enter his land either from the municipal building or the parking lot adjacent to his lot.

And to make matters worse, according to Sanabria, the 5.200 square metre land that the municipal building sits on is not registered in the name of the municipality, but rather is still in the name of the original owner who the lands was expropriated from 32 years ago, José Pujol Martí, who is now deceased.

The businessman is now questioning how the municipal building was built with the registration change nor registering any construction plans, health permits and soil tests. Sanabria added that without the aforementioned documents the building could not have been built. But it was.