who owns that land?

sometimes this job requires some detective skills. we're trying very hard to figure out who owns a piece of land here that a client is interested in possibly buying. finding out the answer to that can sometimes be quick and easy but sometimes not. in this case of this piece of land, it is turning out to be a lengthy and tough process.

the first way to try to find out this info is to ask the neighbors if they know the owner. we did that about 10 days ago. we drove around and next to the lot. this brought a few people out of their homes to wonder what we were doing, as this is not a particularly gringo-filled area. we made contact with one of the neighbors. now this is when you gotta be able to speak spanish. (way to go, v!) he said that he did not know but would try to find out. the dominicans are very helpful, as usual.

a few days later we call him up and ask if he has figured it out yet. "nope, but i am going to be meeting with someone in a few days who works for the owner and could find it out then."

a few days went by, we called him again. "oh no, have not met with the guy yet."

ok, well, do you know of someone else who might know the owner and do you at least know the owner's name? "oh yeah, his name is such and such and there is this lawyer in town who would know how to reach him."

excellent, what is his number? "don't know but his office is here and here in cabarete."

ok, but at least now we had a name and a possible other lead to follow up with. we decided to call pablo, tell him the name, and see if he knew it. pablo - "oh yes, i knew his name but not how to get in contact with him." DOH! you knew his name? well, how can we get in contact with him? pablo - "well, we could look it up in the phone book." there is actually a phonebook here? @#$%^&*!! of course the phone book will only contain numbers for landlines and many people here just have cell phones,so this is only slightly promising.

as we do not have one of these phone books and we wanted to take the bulls by the horn, off we went immediately to the lawyer's office. it's saturday, so he is not in. :-( but hey, let's ask a hotel if they have a phone book. sure enough, they do.

now the funny thing about this phone book is that it covers like 3/4 of the entire country! it's about as thick as a boston yellow pages! it goes by town. so we look up the name in like 6 towns that would be likely candidates for someone who owns land in cabarete. we locate 6 people with the name who live in santiago - all women, mind you and the name was for a male. veronica starts calling each one. one person says "wrong number" and hangs up. another says "i know someone who owns a sweet shop with that name. you want sweets?" another does not answer.

we decide to call juan and ask if the name rings a bell with him. we should have done this first actually, as juan knows tons of people. well, juan says "oh, he is dead." dead? @#$%^*!! we start laughing - not out of disrespect, but it is just funny that we have been trying to locate someone who is no longer with us. then we remember that one of the neighbors had said this as well, so it actually made sense. anyway, juan says let me ask guido if he knows the heirs, and puts us on hold. juan comes back and confirms the first report. he says on monday (today), we can figure out lawyers who would know his heirs.

ok, so we gave it our best shot and now had to wait until today. i hope we figure it out today!