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Family
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Alejandro: Solutions for a complicated family property
Alejandro is 35 years old. He makes a living from trading all kinds of
goods. Although his parents lived together for
16 years and 4 children
were born, they never got married.
In the Bolivian Aymara culture, this is a very common practice. After 16
years, his father left and officially got married to another woman. With
her, he had two more children. Alejandro's father died two years ago.
Alejandro and his mother still live in the house that was joint property
of his parents. He wanted to renovate the house, but needed permission
from the municipality's officials. However, the proprietary status of
the house was unclear and Alejandro did not get permission.
Loss of family members frequently creates problematic situations and
inheritance issues are very urgent legal problems.
The Microjustice
Bolivia website has special pages for such problems. On these pages,
best practices can be found that help people to overcome the
difficulties relating to inheritances that may arise. Among these are
recommendations regarding communication in the aftermath of the passing
of a family member, an unexpected will or conflicting wills, evaluation
of assets, buying out shareholders, leaving ownership undivided, fair
division of goods, etc. The website also provides the objective criteria
(norms for distribution) that are commonly applied in the area in which
Alejandro lives and the objective criteria that are applied by people in
other areas.
This information possibly enables people like Alejandro to find a
solution without further assistance. However, for a small fee, the
Microjustice Facilitator assesses the situation from a neutral
perspective. He may explain that the objective criteria seem to imply
that the mother owns half of the house, and that the other half has to
be divided by the widow of the father, and
the 6 children.
Together with the Microjustice Facilitator, Alejandro discussed some
possible solutions.
This information did not solve
the problem completely and Alejandro
visited the Microjustice Facilitator again for a joint consultation with
the other people involved. This resulted into agreement about how the
value of the house was divided in such a way that Alejandro and his
mother could continue living there and even renovate the house.
Microjusticia Bolivia supports the Microjustice Facilitator
in more
complicated issues. It also organizes a credible threat of a neutral
intervention if problems like Alejandro faced
are not solved because one
of the other persons involved is not willing to cooperate.
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