WHEN TITLES AREN'T ENOUGH

Once upon a time, a man once bought a vacant lot in an ordinary, ungated residential neighborhood. He did nothing with it. No fence, no caretaker, no visits—just a title tucked away, proof enough in his mind that the land was his.

Years passed.

Then one day, squatters began to appear. The owner noticed, but he wasn’t alarmed. As long as his name was on the title, he believed the law was on his side.

Decades went by, and the owner died. The property passed to his son.

The son had no plans to use the lot, so he decided to sell it. Almost immediately, he was warned: clear the property first. The advice was blunt and unanimous—pay the squatters to leave. It was the fastest way.

The son refused.

Why should he pay people who had no right to be there? He chose the “proper” route and filed a case.

What followed was a decade-long legal battle.

During the proceedings, unsettling details emerged.

Years earlier, the original owner had visited the property, introduced himself as the owner, and demanded that the occupants vacate. They ignored him. According to them, another man had long claimed ownership—and their grandfathers had been paying rent to that man for decades.

By the time the son inherited the land, that supposed landlord had vanished without a trace.

Eventually, the court ruled in the heir’s favor.

Despite the favorable judgment, the squatters remained.

In the end, the heir did what he had resisted from the start: he paid them to leave. The court decision didn’t eliminate the cost—it merely reduced the asking price. Family by family, they agreed to vacate upon payment.

The heir prepared funds for five families. On negotiation day, ten families showed up.

Then came the final holdout.

One woman refused payment, claiming that her small structure—barely 10 sqm—was not part of the heir’s property at all. The heir commissioned another survey. The results were clear: her claim was false.

She dismissed the survey outright.

Exhausted and drained by years of litigation, the heir paid her MORE than the others—just to end it. She left.

The lot was finally cleared.

Lesson: Protect your properties from squatters—early, visibly, and decisively.