Cuba is a country on an island just 90 miles south of the United States, it became a communist regime under a totalitarian government more than fifty years ago. It expropriated personal, commercial and real estate properties of its citizens, foreign residents and foreign countries like the United States under absurd and unjustified pretexts and never paid a penny of its value to anyone. They only achieved failure, waste, and the disruption of lives and wealth. Natural resources have been depleted and damage to ecology and the environment has rendered the value of the land useless for modern use and development. Commercial buildings of beautiful Spanish, French and American architecture have deteriorated for lack of maintenance throughout the country.

Modern agricultural and commercial enterprises on par with the rest of the world in efficiency and productivity became the product of a system reflecting similar failures in countries that Russia took over after World War II. Which delayed its progress for years behind most civilized countries. Russia’s failure in Cuba to turn it into a satellite played a role in its downfall as the leading communist state.

The refusal of Cuba to compensate the expropriations of the United States and all the other countries that had investments in Cuba forced the United States to impose an embargo on Cuba, as a result, all credits and trade agreements were suspended, all credits, deposits and monetary accounts. of Cuba in American banks, were frozen. and trading stopped. between the two countries. Capital fled by all possible means until the Cuban revolutionary government learned ways to stop the flow of funds in convertible currency such as the US dollar, which had free exchange and circulation on a par with the Cuban currency (peso). But the land and buildings could not leave the country nor could they be sold to get their monetary value out of the country because the revolutionary government took control of all banks, property registries and converted the currency (peso) to a new lower value peso . making the old currency (peso) useless and illegal.

Since then, obviously, all the property may not belong to the revolutionary government, but it has full and absolute control over it. Will this change in the future? The answer is yes.

Cuba had a preferential sugar supplier quota for the US that it had earned with Cuba’s support of the US during the war years, when Cuba was ruled by democratic governments. This preferential sugar seller quota to the United States had been the agreement that made Cuba one of the best economically developed countries in the world and the second highest per capita income in the American continent. Cuba’s preferential sugar quota was eliminated and delivered in parts to four other countries in Central America and South Latin America.

The Russian economy could not sustain Cuba because its methods of development, production and distribution were never followed by a Cuban population settled in the capitalist ways of its closest and most profitable trading partner, the United States.

Real estate begins with the land and its highest and best use. If you buy land in the rough and pay a market price, you will not make a profit when you sell it, unless the economy around you improves, or unless you change its use to a productive purpose. Because in a communist country all property belongs to the state and each citizen is under the control of the state or the government, there is no personal initiative, interest and much less freedom to act, and do the best that a person can do to improve. his or his life and that of his family. Therefore, at the individual level in Cuba, Real Estate has no value. Since Cuba controls all properties, from raw land to improved real estate, be it industrial, commercial or public service facilities. The Cuban government owns everything and manages all the productive elements that keep the country running. They do this primarily through the use of members of the armed forces who have gradually replaced the regular workforce of Cuban society. As in most countries, including US soldiers, regardless, they are paid less than civilians for job performance.

In Cuba, every citizen has to serve in the military, in a country where private enterprise is not allowed and anyone caught operating a private business is arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to prison, the average citizen has minimal options in life.

The school is free, but most of the curriculum is political indoctrination to eventually feed the workforce, which is the military, they demand a free and high-quality public health system, but it is not true, they subject it to free school Many doctors who never get supervised practice and are sent to poor countries to serve people, but essentially practice their specialty without responsible supervision. Cubans have few options, the military, a social work profession such as being a militant observer of their family and friends, a doctor without a practice, engineers without a job, or a surviving mother in a society without private enterprise.

. When a person cannot follow the few options mentioned, this person becomes what they call in terms of socialist countries an “antisocial”, it means that the person with a lot of tolerance works when he finds something to do, like repairing a car or a car. household item, bargain in black. consumer goods market, and steal anything from the government that a friend in the military lets go unnoticed. When we examine this reality, it is understood why so many risk everything to leave the country by any means. A raft floating to the Florida or Mexico keys, by marriage to a foreigner, or becoming a citizen of another country such as Spain due to proven ancestry in some way.

Real estate in Cuba began as a colony of Spain, the first settlers who had the interest of raising cattle, or growing tobacco choose an area of ​​land where of course there were no fences. To claim a plot of land, a person could take a stick and throw it as far as he could and then circle around and measure the land within the circle, this was called a Hato or Corral, and then it was recorded as a plot. Real Estate was a rudimentary way of knowing who was the owner of the land, so the system lent itself to numerous claims, with no solution in sight. We must give credit to the late university professor and Ph.D. in Business Sciences, Mr. Paulino Urbieta, who as a thesis at the University of Havana did Real Estate and many other valuable research elements back in 1940 to continue improving and better maintaining the public ownership. and statistical records using the metric system of measurement. It was before that year that properties began to be recorded with greater precision and measured by agronomists. The registration was carried out by a Notary Public who, contrary to the method in the United States, a Notary Public in Cuba had to have the same university credits as a lawyer, in essence, be a Real Estate Lawyer, Guardian of property records.

When the communist revolution came to Cuba in 1959, the government used property registers only to distribute property in the way it deemed appropriate for its particular plans and uses. Therefore, most of the property registries in Cuba are in regrettable disarray.

Many second- and third-generation Cuban exiled attorneys and real estate brokers have been able to file Cuban property records of prime-quality land, buildings, and real estate for the purpose of establishing claims to recover properties that were taken from their original legal owners. now they are fifty years old. Communist government.

The fact that more than fifty years have passed under communism in Cuba shows only one struggle on this continent between Capitalism and Communism, something that Europe has lived through and continues to have in a somewhat cooler confrontation, and which is now called Socialism. . It is spreading throughout Latin America and is becoming a threat to peace, democracy and peaceful social order in the region, it affects the right of people to real property that is the starting point of progress and a better life.

When Cuba and the United States move towards better relations and the interests of the United States change, real estate will continue to be a value that can only function if its owners have their rights of use, sale and transmission to heirs.

In the coming years, Cuban Real Estate will continue to be a very difficult property to determine who owns it, as the Cuban government leased it to foreign investors, hotels and light industries were built, and rights of use were granted to other countries. , even countries that are enemies of the United States. Eminent domain is the most common and the only way to designate the use of real estate in Cuba.

The fact that Cuba is only 90 miles away, a small island surrounded by water and now part of the global economy and a springboard for other countries with ambitions, resources and political dominance in Latin America, sooner or later the government of States United, your people. and the allies will have to confront not what eleven million Cubans have done but what a few thousand who make up the now-called Cuban socialist government have done with the Cuban people and are responsible for having made Cuba go back in time and time. progress to the point of having reduced it to the second poorest country on the continent.

The Cuban people live in houses below our description of “Marginal” condition, several families of ten or more share houses built for one family and several houses share only one bathroom. People sleep in bunk beds one on top of the other on two or more levels under one roof. . People can’t move from one house to another, much less buy it, so everyone rents from the government. When a real need arises for a larger or smaller house, the head of the household goes to the housing government office but there is never a vacancy, the country is behind the housing needs by thousands of unknown units. So a lot of illegal and tolerated housing activity goes out to the streets or mainly to the central park of the city.

Example: A typical “antisocial” citizen knows someone who needs a bigger house, so in the public park they spread the word and soon someone with another house or apartment shows up to exchange, they make a verbal agreement and pay a commission to the third party. match finder, then they go to the government office and ask permission to make the change they usually get, as a result, which is the typical way a real estate transaction can be carried out in Cuba every day. by citizens.

In a very limited number, Spanish citizens have leased privileged land and built condominiums for seasonal tourist occupancy where the Cuban government always owns 51%. It is doubtful that in a change in Cuba these investors can establish any legal claim of a new government, be it communist or capitalist.

For years to come, Cuba Real Estate will continue to be one of the worst investments anyone can make. For second homes, nursing homes, resort investments or any other real estate investment.

There are countries where real estate agents who are certified international property professionals who are members of the National Real Estate Association and their state and local association can provide a real estate investor, buyer, or seller with a wealth of advice on how to make an investment. safe and worthwhile.