Real Estate

Introduction:

Jamaica is a beautiful country with a cosmopolitan culture. This rich cultural landscape has created an almost insatiable appetite to own property in Jamaica. Prospective buyers fall into three market segments: local residents, the Jamaican Diaspora, and foreigners. Buying and selling real estate in Jamaica is marked by an absence of standardized contract. Thus the process is heavily dependent upon the involvement of lawyers.

What is Adverse Possession?

Adverse possession is a way that an individual can legally take property owned by another individual without paying for it. The requirements for adversely possessing property varies if the previous land owner is a private individual, government entity, or a person with disability but include continuous and open use of the other persons land for a specified period years on the property in question. The basic idea is that you will not have ownership of the property by title but will have established that you are the de facto owner by how you use the property. In effect, adverse possession is a process by which land can change ownership without a formal grant of ownership by the previous owner to the current owner.