A common fear of landlords when renting a property long-term is that the tenant could become the owner of the home where they live. Although it could be the case, this is not a simple process.
Juan Felipe Sicua, lawyer and advisor to the Legal Office of the Universidad del Rosario, explains that Law 820 of 2003 and Sentence SC10189-2016 safeguard landlords, thanks to their power to regulate all contractual aspects of the leasing of urban housing in Colombia, along with articles 1973 and subsequent articles of the Civil Code for those cases that the norm does not mention.
According to the lawyer, several scenarios would have to occur for a tenant to be able to appropriate real estate, which is why it is important to understand the lease contracts and the possible scenarios into which they could be transformed.
“The theory of intervention of the title, declared by the Supreme Court of Justice, requires as a first requirement that the lessee be unaware of the quality of the lessor, which constitutes the execution of acts aimed at exercising public, peaceful and interrupted possession, with “The purpose is to acquire ownership through the extraordinary prescription of the domain, as long as 10 years have passed,” Sicua explained.
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“This means that the tenant would have to leave the property abandoned for a long time, which would include leaving in the hands of the tenant all those inherent obligations and responsibilities that as the owner of a property one has towards third parties and the State,” added the lawyer.
Sicua indicates that, to reach this moment, the law requires the existence of a temporal milestone, which consists of demonstrating the exact moment and the subsequent events in which the legitimate owner of the property was unknown. “It is not enough to simply demonstrate that possession has been exercised over the real estate, but the facts over time that constitute that milestone must also be demonstrated exactly.”
“For the award of real estate that is not yours, you must not only have the intention of taking ownership of it, it requires a transformation of its quality accompanied by evidence and the passage of time through a judicial process that, for the sake of the right to due process will call the owner to exercise his defense,” explained the advisor from the Legal Office of the Universidad del Rosario.
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Sicua affirms that the tenant is a mere holder and cannot take ownership of the property where he lives, since by signing a rental agreement, the tenant recognizes that the property or domain in the hands of the landlord is evidenced by a monthly appropriation. This payment is one of the essential elements of the contractual process, taking into account that the law authorizes the lessor to terminate the contract due to non-compliance with it.
A lease contract is characterized, according to the advisor’s words, by two subjects who decide to bind each other. One of the parties delivers real estate, understood as a house or apartment, so that the other party can use and enjoy said property for their habitation. However, the owner of the property as the holder of the real right of ownership retains for himself an attribute, the disposition of the property according to his needs and the right to request the property at any time.