Tuesday, April 22, 2008

We've decided to stay...

My post from the http://www.redfrogbeachforum.com today:

Thanks to many of the owners who have contacted us recently after seeing my posts at http://redfrogblog.blogspot.com. Your input has made all the difference. Before we heard from you, we felt we were all alone out there; torn between sticking with it and wanting to see Red Frog succeed or getting our money out and moving on. We have decided to do the former.

Joe and Dan have been exceptional at explaining their position and our options; they have worked exceedingly hard at helping us find a solution to our unique situation. They were very good at making lemonade out of lemons!

At first we were not thrilled at having our dreams of a beach front villa wiped out. And fractional ownership was the furthest thing from our mind. We wanted to have our own place, decorate it like we wanted and rent it or not rent it out. That may still happen, but not until Phase I is completed. So our next question was, what do we really want?

We are now convinced that fractional is a good alternative for the short term. We will be able to visit to see if we even like living on Bastimentos, or if we really want to build that dream home on the Caribbean! Plus the host home could be done as early as the end of the year if the project starts back up. That certainly is a lot better than waiting possibly 2-3 more years for titling on our rights of possession lot so we can finance our villa (or worse, having to come up with 100% to build it!). If we don't like it, there is a good chance we can sell the fractional and get our money out that way.

For those of you naysayers, you probably think I have drunk the Kool-Aid. Those of you who are already onboard, you have probably come to the same conclusions we have and have made or are contemplating making a deal to get this project back on track. We believe this is the best solution for all of us; to get the project built. Good luck to everyone at the owners' meeting next month in Minneapolis. We will not be there. We are told the room is FULL! Most of the attendees I have communicated with are very positive about finding solutions. I think it will be a most enjoyable event!

If you have questions or concerns, e-mail me mick@sfresidence.com!

Mick & Janis Lot 83

Question about weather in Bocas

Because of the way Red Frog is restructuring some of the owner's positions, we have given up (temporarily) our dream of having our own villa on the beach and decided to choose a fractional ownership. Although it is not our original vision, we feel it is better to have something now rather than nothing later.

So my question is this, now that we have decided on a fractional ownership, which "permanent" 2 weeks should we choose? We told Joe we wanted a time when it is not raining... He laughed and asked us if we saw how green it is in Bocas, and if we ever considered how it got that way???

Seriously, we know it rains in Bocas. But some months are generally better than others, and we would like input on which weeks to choose. For now we have made a choice on our permanent 2 weeks and are happy with those (provided we get them) but wondered if others had considered this?

Here's what we've heard:

The rainy season is technically June-August and December—January; However, based on our data, there is a consistent amount of rainfall month to month (most of the rain in Bocas occurs at night). The daytime showers are typically “hard and fast.”

Here is a note from Ryan Bullock who has lived in Bocas for sometime:

May is a pretty good month. September/October/November are usually pretty dry months – although I think one of the biggest storms we had last year was in September.

Remember, during the “rainy season”, Bocas typically gets short “showers” that usually only last an hour or two. Many times, the clouds clear in the afternoon and create good beach weather. I think June/July is nesting season for some sea-turtle species, too…

Mick @ Lot 83

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Red Frog is making positive steps to get back to work

Just a quick note to say thank you to Joe and Dan for working with us to come up with a compromise that will help both parties, and will hopefully get the project started back up soon!

If you have any doubts about the intentions of these guys, take my word for it, they have been very helpful in getting us repositioned with equity ownership instead of our promise to purchase contract.

Their expectation is that by restructuring the debt into equity, Red Frog can get funded and building can begin again. We are eager to see them get back to work!

Mick @ Lot 83

Rights of Possession Explained

Here is an article sent to me by Don King, a Realtor in Bocas, who has 3 acres (front one is on the beach) for sale down at the end of Red Frog Beach for $299,000 (no improvements). He was kind enough to send me a link to an article that explains the very confusing rights of possession laws in Panama.

The article is about 1/3 of the way down the page AFTER the vegan article!

Here is an excerpt:

If you contemplate buying land in Panama, you should know about a unique feature of land ownership here know as “Rights of Possession”. There are in fact three types of “ownership”. There is titled land which is registered in the Public Registry. There is land owned by the Government and there is land for which, by virtue of having occupied it, a person has earned the “right to posses” it.

The history of this goes back to land reform which was instituted by Gen Omar Torrijos whose military dictatorship from 1968 to 1981 brought a number of social reforms. He introduced an agrarian land reform program which in essence stipulated “if you live on the land and work the land you have the right to possess it.

Rights of Possession are duly recorded and can be transferred to a third party including foreigners but it is the Ministry of Agriculture Agrarian Reform Offices, not the Public Registry, which records Rights of Possession on agricultural lands. The Directorate General of the Surveyor of the Ministry of Economy and Finance records island, beachfront and marine properties. The rest of the ROP's are not recorded.

There are two kinds of Rights of Possession:Those located in national lands subject to the jurisdiction of the Directorate General of the Surveyor of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. This type of ROP segregates into those subject to titled and those subject to an administrative concession (lease). The Rights of Possession subject to an administrative concession are beachfront, marine bottom and islands. Concessions are explained below.

Those located in agricultural land which have been allocated and transferred to the Department of the Agrarian Reform of the Ministry of Agriculture for the specific purposes to grant titles for agricultural use.

When it comes to trying to find out who possesses what the process can be tedious. An administrative system exists for the documentation and certification of ROP land. Employees of the regional offices of the Agrarian Reform, local Mayor's office, property tax office (Catastro), and justices of the peace (Corregidor) oversee and manage this system of documentation.

Mick @ Lot 83

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Owners Meeting

Red Frog owners are gathering in Minneapolis on May 16th to have a meeting. I'm told they meet first, then Joe and Scott (essentially what's left of Red Frog management) will be brought in to address the owners' issues. Here is the e-mail I received:

Let me start off by thanking everybody for your strong interest and support of the owners meeting on May 16th in Minneapolis. To date, we already have 32 owners confirmed to attend the meeting, with another 7 pending. Also, many of you offered to help with the meeting, which I appreciate very much, because we could really use your help and assistance in making this a successful meeting for all us owners.

First of all, we need two or three owners to put together the agenda for the meeting. I will be sending out an email shortly requesting that all owner’s summit questions and topics they would like answered and discussed. Those questions and topics will be sent directly to the owners responsible for compiling and organizing the agenda, and once completed, will be distributed to the owners and RFB prior to the meeting. We are also looking for a moderator/facilitator to help run and control the meeting. We would like to ask that owners either recommend someone you think would be a good candidate or yourself if you are interested in the job. After consulting a few other owners we determined that the ideal candidate should be an owner that is fine with not actively participating in the discussions. We feel it’s very important that this individual be neutral and impartial when moderating the meeting. Obviously the meeting will be comprised of many owners that have a wide-range of varying viewpoints, and we want every owner to have an opportunity to participate and feel completely comfortable in expressing their thoughts and opinions.

Lastly, there are many owners that would like to be at this meeting, but will not have an opportunity to join the rest of us, but it’s clear from their comments to me that they are very interested in knowing what is said and discussed at the meeting. We would like to hear from the owners what you feel would be the best method in providing them a summary of what takes place at the meeting, keeping in mind this is an 8 hour meeting. We are looking for ideas that are relatively simple, effective, efficient, and ideally does not cost money. There have already been some good suggestions tossed around. For instance, having RFB answer in writing all the agenda questions prior to the meeting and then distribute to all the owners after the meeting. Have a few people take notes … are there any stenographers or owners that know short-hand among us? Or maybe we do a combination of things to document the meeting? Please let us know your thoughts?

So please everyone give some thought and consideration to what I stated above, and please respond as soon as you can, because there are so many things that still need to come together and happen, and we don’t have a lot of time before the meeting is upon us. Also, would you please email your replies and suggestions to John Cloutier at johnjcloutier@comcast.net and please copy me on the email as well at christopherahahn@bellsouth.net. John has been assisting me for some time now and was kind enough to volunteer and field the requests above. I would also like to acknowledge David Gramling’s efforts in taking care of the meeting location and hotel accommodations, which we will be sending information about real soon.

Thank you all very much in advance for helping out and assisting in putting together what I hope will be a productive and positive meeting for everyone.


I hope I am not out of line posting this message, but I think it deserves publication. All along, I have strongly supported the Red Frog project, but now we are not sure. We are interested in staying in touch with anyone who wants to discuss this.

Mick & Janis @ lot 83

Friday, April 4, 2008

Contradictions everywhere

To be fair, the person that told me about the Union and Red Frog having to pay them for being out on strike is the attorney who used to work with them and has an axe to grind because they owe him money.

I spoke with Sam Taliaferro and Paul McBride who have never heard of such a thing. Neither have other people who do business down there, so I am not sure this is fact.

I do know that the owners are having a meeting in Minneapolis in a month or so, and the Red Frog "Team" (now consisting of Scott and Joe) will also be attending.

- Mick @ lot 83