Finally, the contract with the developers of Rancho Santana is ready to be signed.
When I visited Nicaragua back on February I’ve met with a local law firm that would serve as my legal proxy for signing all the legal documents. That would allow me to do almost anything without having to arrive to Nicaragua.
Back in mid April I received the first draft of the documents. Since than I was working with the Nicaraguan lawyer to comment and fix it, and now with the updated lot size everything seems to be ready to sign.
I must add that the developer was very accommodating during this process. I don’t think I had any unreasonable change requests but I always get a feeling from working with Marc and the other people of Rancho Santana that they are genuinely trying to make thing done!
I will have my lawyer to sign in my name and start liquidating some other investments to have the initial payment wired.
I interview two Nicaraguan architects over the phone. Roy sent me portfolios of both of their past work. Roy worked with both in the past and promised that past experience was very good with both.
I’ve interviewed people for many high tech positions in the past but never for an architect position. I’ve looked around the web for some advice on the matter and equipped with that and my own expectations I talked with both of them.
Both had good English and I was able to have a good conversation with both. After talking to both I decided to go with Mrs. Maria Huezo.I felt our communication was very good, and I felt that her relatively young company would be dedicated to the project and will be able to provide a good quality design in a timely fashion. She has just finished the design on another house in Rancho Santana and Roy said that she was very attentive and provided many excellent design documents.
Maria has already visited the lot prior to our conversation so I was able to describe to her my general direction. I’ve asked her to send me a contract and I promised to write down a “brief” of my expectations.
Just got word from Roy that the new lot legends are registered with the official “Land Registry” of Nicaragua! didn’t take too long since Roy told me that they are willing to increase to lot size…
Roy just sent me an image of the workers moving the markers of the lot. Now I’ll have more space to place the house on the leveled area that we will create by cutting the land down.
– 19-May-2010
Comparing this to the way the lot looked when I was there, I begin to understand why they called it “the dry season” back in February…
Rancho Santana, Nicaragua – 21-Feb-2010
