House Bill 1053, which amends the Municipal Code of Puerto Rico and the General Law of Forcible Expropriation to “authorize municipalities to bring forcible expropriation actions against real property that has been declared a public nuisance” without the immediate appearance of the owners, not only advances the expropriation process for city councils, but could also help resolve the housing crisis on the Island, stated specialists interviewed by EL VOCERO .
However, those interviewed pointed out that it will not only be up to the municipalities to ensure that the law, signed by Governor Pedro Pierluisi last Monday, does not remain a dead letter, but that it is also up to the mayors to establish concrete plans on how they would address the problem of access to affordable housing in their towns.
“One of the important changes in the law is that I, the municipality, am going to expropriate the property, but I do not have to put the funds in court until someone appears claiming (the property). That means if no one shows up, I didn't post anything. If 10 years pass, it is 10 years that I saved from having them frozen in court,” explained the president of the Bar Association, Mr. Manuel Quilichini.
“This law would mean that the municipality does not have to enter into the process of allocating money, because the problem is that sometimes we do not even have the person who is and, if we do not have the person who is, then we cannot consign it to the court," said, for his part, the mayor of Villalba, Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz, who stressed that one of the biggest problems that municipalities currently face during the process of expropriation of public nuisances is that the owners of the properties, in many Sometimes they do not appear.
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