Any procedure not provided for or that in the future must be exercised in relation to the matter that motivates this regulation, must follow the procedures established herein, as well as the fundamental principles of logic, science, technique, and rationality inherent to all administrative action. In case of doubt, it must be resolved before the Municipal Mayor's Office, which shall dictate the rules of action in said cases, until such time as the Council regulates that new situation.
Collections Office In addition to the merely enunciative competencies included in the Class and Position Manual of the Municipality of Carrillo, specifically, this office is responsible for:
1. Creating and implementing the necessary mechanisms and controls to make effective the collection and corresponding payment of delinquent accounts, both administratively and judicially.
2. Timely executing payment demands for administrative collection of debts generated by non-compliance with the construction regulations in force in the Municipality, once it is informed of this situation by the Engineering or Inspectors Department.
3. Authorizing Payment Arrangements in accordance with the municipal regulations in force.
4. Treating all taxpayers equitably under equal conditions.
5. Keeping a strict control of breached payment arrangements, having to transfer to judicial collection those cases in which the timely payment of at least one agreed installment is breached. This transfer must be made at the latest eight (8) days after the date on which the breach of the agreed payment is detected.
6. Overseeing the judicial collection work carried out by the external lawyers contracted by the Municipality.
7. Respecting the principle that, once judicial collection has begun, it may only be terminated or suspended against TOTAL PAYMENT of the sum owed + procedural and personal costs + expenses of the action.
8. Informing the Municipal Mayor's Office of any irregular situation that arises in the judicial collection procedures, and any other situation that arises in the administrative collections.
Administrative Collection:
Once the Head of the Collections Office receives the report or information on the existence of a pending account chargeable to a taxpayer violating the construction regulations in force in this Municipality, no later than within the following fifteen (15) calendar days, they must:
1. Notify the taxpayer of the amount of the debt existing against them, that they must proceed with the total payment of the amount owed within a period not exceeding five (5) business days counted from the notification, unless a payment arrangement is authorized that allows them to comply within a longer period.
2. Carry out three (3) administrative collection efforts on delinquent accounts, separated by compliance periods of no more than eight (8) business days. Once the (3) efforts or payment demands are exhausted, within the following five (5) business days, the Head of Collections must transfer the case to the lawyers in charge of external judicial collection and request the Engineering Department to render a formal appraisal of the buildings that violate the law, for auction purposes.
3. Agree to a payment arrangement with the taxpayer.
4. Safeguard in a safety deposit box or locked file, the administrative arrangement document and the authorized collateral guarantees, the existence of which must be communicated to the Engineering and Mayor's Departments, for internal control purposes.
5. In case of breach by the taxpayer of the timely payment of any of the agreed installments, timely send the case for judicial collection to the corresponding lawyers.
6. Request an appraisal of assets from the Municipal Engineering Department.
7. Deliver, once the administrative collection effort is exhausted, the necessary documentation of the accounts in a state of delinquency to the lawyers designated by the Municipal Council, so that they proceed with judicial collection.
8. Exercise the direction and control of the judicial collection efforts, through the following procedure:
a. Review of monthly reports that the lawyers must render to the respective office.
b. Written requests for progress updates on each process or on a particular procedure, for any account in judicial collection.
c. Transfer to the Mayor's Office and the Council, a report on irregular professional performances in collection procedures, for the purpose of conducting an investigation, and if applicable, proceeding with the suspension of the lawyer until they comply with the Municipal Collection Regulation, or definitively dispensing with the services of that lawyer.
9. Assigning by strict alphabetical order, the judicial collections that apply, among the active lawyers that the Municipality has contracted for this purpose.
10. Keeping a chronological control of notices for auctions generated by judicial collection actions.
11. Requesting, 8 days after the holding of the auction, a report from the respective legal advisor, with a copy to the Municipal Council, to proceed with the execution of the corresponding guarantee or sanction before the omission of the legal advisor.
12. Rendering a monthly report to the Mayor on the collection efforts of delinquent accounts and the status of the actions in each case.
Payment Arrangements In accordance with articles 25 to 30 of the Regulation for the administrative and judicial collection procedure of the Municipality of Carrillo (approved in Ordinary Session No. 31-98 of June 4, 1998, published in La Gaceta of June 15, 1998):
1. A payment arrangement is the commitment assumed by the delinquent taxpayer, to pay in a peremptory time the account owed to the Municipality.
2. The Collections Office shall be in charge of carrying out the arrangement procedures.
3. The maximum time granted to make a payment arrangement shall be Three Calendar Months, counted from the date of signing of the respective document.
4. The Municipal Council shall prepare a table where the amount of the prior deposits to the formalization of the payment arrangements is specified.
5. If the delinquent taxpayer breaches, the matter shall immediately pass to Judicial Collection.
6. Payment arrangements apply to debts exceeding ¢10,000.00.
7. Payment arrangement is not applicable to sums that previously had been considered in a payment arrangement breached by the taxpayer.
8. The documentation shall remain in custody of the Collections Office, which, if necessary, shall forward it to the Lawyers contracted by the Municipality to carry out the respective collection efforts.
Judicial Collection 1. Timely transfer cases with unsuccessful administrative collection efforts to judicial collection.
2. Oversee the development of the judicial collection procedures undertaken.
3. Keep control of the dates of holding auctions and the result thereof.
4. Report any vicissitude to the Municipal Mayor's Office so that it orders the corresponding corrective or disciplinary measures.
5. Coordinate with the lawyers managing judicial collection, at least the following:
a. That the judicial collection proceedings be initiated promptly.
b. That the auction of the taxpayer's assets be requested.
c. That the principles of action at auction be respected: in case the appraisal of assets exceeds the amount of the debt, as long as there are bidders, it must limit itself to offering the appraisal amount provided this does not exceed the debt to the Municipality. If the appraisal indicates a value lower than the debt, as long as there are bidders, it must bid at auction to obtain the full satisfaction of the municipal debt.
d. Request that the edict calling for auction be compared with the base documents of the municipal lawsuit, with the warning that by omitting this, the professional shall be responsible for any harm caused to the Municipality by their error.
e. That the result of the auction be sent by the lawyer for their timely knowledge, that is, on the business day following the auction.
f. That in case of total payment of the debt at municipal collection offices, the external lawyers be timely notified so that they cease the processing of the case and detail the expenses incurred in the judicial process for their collection together with the fees earned.
Revenue and Constructions Unit In addition to the merely enunciative competencies included in the Class and Position Manual of the Municipality of Carrillo, specifically, this office and the officials that comprise it are responsible for:
1. Keeping a consecutive numbering of the procedures entering its office, which must indicate the year of the procedure and an official numbering.
2. Filing in strict chronological order the documents that generate a procedure, from oldest to most recent.
3. Folioing each procedure dossier, assigning the lower number to the initial document and the subsequent ones to the most recent documents.
4. Maintaining in its department a locked file that shall be assigned by the Mayor's Office, until the institutional archive is established, in which all dossiers are duly safeguarded.
5. Assigning a procedure number to each matter entering the department, regardless of whether it is the same administered party requesting a plurality of procedures.
6. Keeping the office of the Unit properly locked with a key and with restricted access, which they shall implement in a coordinated manner with the Mayor's Office.
7. Executing inspection and control duties over the regular compliance with the permits granted by the Municipality and the obligations of the taxpayers, and in case of detecting an abuse or non-compliance, issuing the respective Inspection Record (Acta de Inspección) with a Works Stoppage Order (Orden de Paralización de Obras) and informing the Mayor's Office urgently.
8. Participating in inspections and follow-up actions with the Inspectors Office, Engineering Department, and Municipal Mayor's Office, remitting a report of the diligences performed to the Mayor's Office, so that the corresponding legal actions are undertaken in case of seal violation, disobedience, and contempt.
9. Implementing the necessary controls and records to guarantee the correct location of dossiers in the office, as well as the status of the respective control and follow-up efforts, under an exact chronological order.
10. Requesting information on the status of compliance with payment arrangements and cancellation of debts prior to carrying out the corresponding inspection trips.
11. Complying with the procedures established in the "Manual of applicable procedures in case of violation of the construction law and the regulation for obtaining construction, repair, and buildings in the maritime-terrestrial zone, works inspection, earthworks, and demolition permits." Engineering Department In addition to the merely enunciative competencies included in the Class and Position Manual of the Municipality of Carrillo, specifically, this office and the officials that comprise it are responsible for:
1. Keeping a consecutive numbering of the procedures entering its office, which must indicate the year of the procedure and an official numbering.
2. Filing in strict chronological order the documents that generate a procedure, from oldest to most recent.
3. Folioing each procedure dossier, assigning the lower number to the initial document and the subsequent ones to the most recent documents.
4. Maintaining in its department, a locked file that shall be assigned by the Mayor's Office, until the institutional archive is established, all dossiers duly safeguarded.
5. Assigning a procedure number to each matter entering the department, regardless of whether it is the same administered party requesting a plurality of procedures.
6. Keeping the office of the Unit properly locked with a key and with restricted access, which they shall implement in a coordinated manner with the Mayor's Office.
7. Assigning the corresponding permit number and conserving the approval document in the dossier.
8. Executing inspection and control duties over the regular compliance with the permits it grants and, in case of detecting an abuse or non-compliance, issuing the respective Inspection Record (Acta de Inspección) with a Works Stoppage Order (Orden de Paralización de Obras) and informing the Mayor's Office urgently.
9. Requesting information on the status of compliance with payment arrangements and cancellation of debts prior to granting municipal permits or licenses.
10. Implementing the necessary controls and records to guarantee the correct location of dossiers in the office, as well as the status of the respective control and follow-up efforts, under an exact chronological order.
11. Coordinating and participating in the inspections and follow-up actions carried out directly by the Municipal Mayor's Office, as well as in those requested by the Collections Office, the Inspectors Office, the Maritime-Terrestrial Zone Office, or the Council, remitting a report of the diligences performed to the Mayor's Office, so that the corresponding legal actions are undertaken in case of establishing a legal non-compliance, seal violation, disobedience, and contempt.
12. Complying with the procedures established in the "Manual of applicable procedures in case of violation of the construction law and the regulation for obtaining construction, repair, and buildings in the maritime-terrestrial zone, works inspection, earthworks, and demolition permits." Due Process Based on articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution, as well as on resolutions 15-90 and 1739-92 both from the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional), any administrative procedure carried out by the Public Administration that entails the cancellation or restriction of a subjective right (acquired in accordance with the law), only proceeds if the following guarantees inherent to the principle of bilaterality of the hearing or due process of law are fulfilled:
- a)Administrative procedure carried out by the Public Administration.
- b)Communicating the charges to the affected party, which implies communicating in an individualized, concrete, and timely manner the facts that are imputed (Notification to the interested party of the nature and purposes of the procedure).
- c)Right to be heard, and opportunity for the interested party to present the arguments and produce the evidence they deem pertinent (Allowing them unrestricted access to the administrative file).
- d)Opportunity for the administered party to prepare their allegation, which necessarily includes access to the information and the administrative background, linked to the matter in question.
- e)Granting them a hearing and allowing them to contribute all evidence they consider appropriate to support their defense (Granting them a reasonable period for the preparation of their defense).
- f)Right of the administered party to be represented and advised by lawyers, technicians, and other qualified persons, so that they may exercise their defense.
- g)Adequate notification of the decision issued by the administration and the grounds on which it is based.
- h)Stating the grounds for the resolutions that put an end to the procedure.
- i)Right of the interested party to appeal the decision issued.
Principles of Action 1) No construction permit normally granted by the Municipality to an owner can be considered precarious (precario), it is not unilaterally revocable except based on article 154 of the General Law of Public Administration (LGAP).
- 2)Not authorizing the segregation of lots (segregación de lotes) that are located within subdivisions (urbanizaciones), whose general plan and design have already been examined and approved by the Engineering Department (article 74 of the National Cadastre Law (Ley del Catastro Nacional), which provides that subdivision lot plans that affect the general plan of the same, submitted and approved by the INVU and the Municipality, shall not be registered, so that any variation in that sense shall imply a new approval of the plan to be registered with the changes made to the arrangement of the lots).
- 3)Constructions that are encroaching on Public Domain Assets:
The violator must be warned that they must demolish what was built in the municipal public domain, within a non-extendable period of 8 days counted from the day following the notification of the corresponding official letter from the Inspections Section, otherwise, the demolition shall be carried out directly by the Municipality and its cost shall be transferred to the violator, to be collected administratively or judicially.
- 4)The execution of the demolition order for the illegal construction does not proceed until the final act of the prior procedure is issued.
- A)For the administration to revoke them or i. If it concerns "permits for use of the public domain" or rights expressly and validly recognized as precarious (precario) —and, of course, if the law does not establish another specific procedure for the case— they may be revoked for reasons of "opportunity" or "convenience" "without liability" provided the administration does not proceed untimely or arbitrarily (article 154).
ii. If there is a prior favorable opinion from the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República), there is simultaneous acknowledgment of damages, and the act is not regulatory, the administration may revoke it. (Article 155 in relation to Article 156, 1).
i. If the nullity is absolute, manifest, and evident, without resorting to the lesivity proceeding (contencioso de lesividad) the administration may so declare it within a period of four years, provided it has a favorable opinion from the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República) (Article 173, 1) ..." ".. we must elucidate what due process is owed to a person who expanded a construction thereby totally obstructing a public street, based on a municipal permit later revoked when the Municipality became aware of a series of irregularities.
The due process is that provided for by Article 154 of the General Public Administration Act (Ley General de la Administración Pública). ... Let us note that with regard to acts declaratory of subjective rights, the General Public Administration Act establishes due process.
The Municipality of ... unilaterally ordered the demolition of the work owned by the petitioner, without first verifying whether said encroachment had actually occurred, and whether or not it had been based on an authorization from the same municipality." (Constitutional Chamber. Judgment No. 6434-93).
6. Construction in the maritime-terrestrial zone. In the case of administrative or jurisdictional proceedings in which a violation of legal provisions related to the maritime-terrestrial zone (zona marítimo terrestre) is alleged, there is no doubt that everything constructed or built without authorization from the respective entities, both in the public zone and in the restricted zone, must be demolished. The verification to be carried out is precisely, in the case of the public zone, that it is not one of the exceptional cases indicated by the law itself and, in the case of the restricted zone, whether there was a first-instance concession, under what conditions it was granted, and whether there was authorization to carry out the works, constructions, or improvements that have been made and that are the subject of discussion in the proceeding. Once the absence of authorization by the competent entities is confirmed, as the case may be, the appropriate course of action is the demolition of what was built and the eviction of the occupants, without prejudice to any corresponding criminal liabilities, just as the very article consulted establishes. Furthermore, it would be necessary to verify whether the construction was already there, even before the entry into force of the law, or if it is one of the "special cases" contemplated by the law itself. Save for those verifications that must be carried out out of common sense, prudence, and good judgment, the destruction of what was built, or the eviction, in no way prejudges the criminal liability of the accused, since it will always involve works carried out in violation of the law, or situations of occupation on unauthorized lands, irrespective of who built them or how they entered the property, such that it does not violate the due process and the right of defense of the accused in the criminal case, because for those purposes, the unauthorized construction or occupation is an objective fact against which the demolition of the work, or, as the case may be, the eviction of the illegal occupants, proceeds, without detriment to the fact that in the criminal venue the construction or usurpation may not be attributable to them, due to absence of intent (dolo), the existence of a justification, a mistake of prohibition (error de prohibición), in short, for any cause of atypicality, exclusion of unlawfulness, or of culpability that could be proven at trial. (Constitutional Chamber, Resolution No. 5616-94). Moreover, according to Article 13 of Law No. 6043: "The authorities of the corresponding jurisdiction and the respective municipalities, as soon as they have notice of the violations referred to in the two preceding articles, shall proceed, following preliminary information gathered for that purpose if deemed necessary, to the eviction of the violators and the destruction or demolition of the constructions, remodeling, or installations carried out by them, without any liability whatsoever for the authority or the municipality. The cost of demolition or destruction shall be charged to the owner of the construction or installation. All of the foregoing without prejudice to any applicable criminal penalties." Consequently, every municipal official, regardless of their position or salary scale, is obliged to report any irregularities that arise in this matter, it being clear that:
- 1)It is the responsibility of the municipalities to take the pertinent measures to counteract such improper actions on the coastal strip, as well as to preserve the natural resources in their original conditions, the eviction of the occupants and the destruction of the buildings being pertinent in the cases provided for by law by virtue of the powers of self-protection (autotutela) and public domain policing (policía demanial), and without prejudice to filing criminal complaints against the violators. Failure to act in accordance with the above may cause their officials to incur disciplinary and criminal liabilities.
The administrative and judicial actions that correspond in matters of public domain property are not subject to the provisions of expiration (caducidad) and statute of limitations (prescripción) of the action, to the extent that they are based on the nature of said property which, by constitutional mandate, does not generate acquisitive prescription of ownership.
D EMOLITION ORDER No.
0001-2004.
Municipal Mayor's Office of Carrillo, at .... hours on the day......... of the month of ........, 200…..
VIOLATOR:.......................... IDENTITY CARD .......
Residing in .............................................
Work address (if different from the above)..............
..........................................................
FOR VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 74 OF LAW No. 833 OF NOVEMBER 4, 1949 AND ITS AMENDMENTS, having been credited through Inspection Report No. ………… contained in the file at folio ....., that a reasonable period for compliance was granted to the violator and that they voluntarily did not appear before this Corporation to regularize their situation as required, this municipal Mayor's Office orders.
- a)For violation of the cited Law No. 833 and the applicable Procedure Manual in cases of violation of the construction law and the regulations for obtaining construction, repair, and expansion permits, as well as for the processing of plan approvals for the construction of buildings in the maritime-terrestrial zone, supervision of works, earthworks (movimientos de tierra), and demolition permits, this Municipality, based on the powers granted to it by Article 87 of the cited law, orders the Demolition of the works recorded in Inspection Report No. ....... using municipal machinery.
- b)This demolition must be carried out by the party that built it, within a maximum period of 8 days from the day following notification; otherwise, it will be carried out with municipal machinery and the cost of this proceeding will be transferred to the violator. That is all. Notify.