In 2006 my husband Harry and myself met John Wade and Rose Ryan through a mutual contact. John and Rose are a couple who are Realtors in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They were promoting a development in Panama in which they had an interest. There would be, we were told, a pool, a rancho with cooking facilities for communal gatherings, a park with beautiful plants, a grand entrance with an arch overhead planted with bougainvilleas climbing it. I was taken out to Vale Escondido on my first trip here to view the scope of possibilities for landscaping and I was enchanted. Surely, if there was a paradise, this was it. We agreed to buy several lots from them. In 2007 they asked for the money even though they could not provide title. Being trusting souls we gave it to them.
Close to a year went by and we were now planing to begin construction of our dream home, save for one small problem, we still did not have title. As it turns out we did not have title because the engineer hired to do the development had not lived up to his end of the deal, or so we were told. The work done on the property was shoddy and apparently not up to standards. We were promised paved roads, we got gravel. The transformer poles were too short and needed to be replaced. There was insufficient transformer capacity. Consequently the developers were withholding payment for his services and in turn he was withholding segregation titles. After much fighting the titles to our lots were finally released in Jan 2008. At last we had title!
Subsequent to that he (the engineer) would not release any more titles until the developer completed his end of the deal. Completion of the ditches, park and common areas. So in Feb 2008 they commenced construction of the ditches. About 20 feet of ditch had been constructed by the time John and Rose left Panama to return to Canada. As the dust settled in their tracks the work stopped.
I came to Panama later in Feb that year and informed John that nothing was being done regarding the ditches. It turns out I believe that a stop work order had been placed. I stayed until the end of April and no more work was done during that time. When I returned in June, they were once again working on the ditches but now it was the rainy season and it is difficult, if not impossible to pour cement in a ditch if it is being washed away by rain. So construction of the ditches stopped. Less than half of the ditches are currently completed as I write this in mid November 2008.
I left again at the end of June with plans to return in September. Our return was delayed until late October. Rose and John had been here for 6 or 7 weeks in August and I was informed that Rose had commenced development of the Park. She had purchased and planted 60 some odd plants and had started an orchard behind our lots 19 and 34. Exciting news surely. Upon our return we were devastated to find that the park is nothing more than dead grass, oh yes, we did see the palm trees in the park, in fact there are 3 of them, the largest of which is about 2 feet tall. The orchard was never planted, that was a lie, and any other plants there I believe succumbed to roundup.
From the beginning of the development of the park I have tried to impress upon Rose Ryan the need for a plan for the common areas of this development. Just as you would not build a house without a plan it is my belief that there needs to be a plan in place for the park, entrance and any other common areas. I am referring to a plan drawn up by a landscape architect complete with engineered drawings of retaining walls, pools, rancho, etc. She consistently informs me that the park is a 'work in progress'. Anybody in Canada listening to her grandiouse plans would think that all was well in paradise. Well, news flash, it is not!!
.JPG)
