Hawaii: Zuckerberg vuole cacciare 200 indigeni dalla loro terra

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Dal giornale locale delle Hawaii:

When Facebook’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg paid around $100 million for 700 acres of rural beachfront land on Kauai two years ago to create what Forbes magazine described as a secluded family sanctuary, he actually acquired a not-so-secluded property.

Now the Facebook CEO is trying to enhance the seclusion of his property by filing several lawsuits aimed at forcing these families to sell their land at a public court auction to the highest bidder.

The legal action known as “quiet title and partition” isn’t uncommon in Hawaii. Yet even with an order from a judge and financial compensation, forcing people to sell land that has been in their families for generations can be off-putting — especially when it’s driven by the sixth-richest person in the world.

“The person being sued is ultimately on the defensive,” said Donald Eby, a real estate attorney and partner in the Colorado law firm Robinson & Henry who isn’t involved in the Zuckerberg actions and directed his comment to quiet title actions in general. “Their ownership is being challenged, and because of that their ownership is put at risk.”

A Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law primer on quiet title and partition law titled “E ‘Onipaa i ke Kulaiwi” said using the law to compel land sales has reduced Native Hawaiian landownership: “Partition by sale in particular is highly problematic for the Native Hawaiian community because it severs a family’s connection to ancestral land.”

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Zuckerberg, through several companies he controls, filed the lawsuits against a few hundred people — many living and some dead — who inherited or once owned interests in what are known as kuleana lands where ownership is often largely undocumented.

Kuleana lands refers to real estate initially acquired by Hawaii citizens through the Kuleana Act of 1850, which followed the Great Mahele, in which the Hawaiian kingdom began allowing private ownership of land. Often, kuleana lands automatically passed to heirs of the first owner in absence of a will or deed, and then down through subsequent generations of descendents who in some cases now own just fractions of an interest in the property without documentation.

Hawaii’s quiet title law can be used to establish legal title to such land. However, quieting these “noisy” real estate titles is expensive and therefore doesn’t happen often unless someone with the financial resources and interest in the property becomes engaged.

“This is a big problem in Hawaii,” said one local lawyer who isn’t involved in the Zuckerberg case, but asked not to be named because of sensitivities surrounding the issue.

A contested case with many owners can cost $100,000 or $200,000 or more. For someone to use the law to not only establish title, but to also force a sale requires that they have an ownership claim. For some of the Kauai land, Zuckerberg has done this by purchasing interests from several part-owners.

In sostanza Mr. Facebook, che parla di ponti, ha comprato alle Hawaii, sull’isola di Kauai, un grande appezzamento nel quale vuole realizzare una lussuosa e totalmente chiusa tenuta privata. Il problema è che questo grande appezzamento contiene, al suo interno, piccoli terreni di proprietà di famiglie indigene da generazioni. Il che darebbe loro diretto a passare dai terreni di Zuck. Risultato del Kuleana Act del 1850 che assegnò l’1% della terra agli autoctoni. Da allora l’eredità si è dispersa in diversi discendenti.

Secondo la legge hawaiana, in questi casi, uno come Zuck può chiedere ad una corte di imporre ai piccoli proprietari la vendita, a lui, dei terreni all’interno del suo. Una sorta di esproprio aristocratico. Che in questo caso significherebbe cacciare centinaia di indigeni dalla loro terra. Perché i ponti vanno bene, quando valgono per gli altri. Per se stessi meglio i muri.