As far as we know, encroachment in our nation is a concerning issue for various reasons. Land-grabbing is already a common occurrence and has been going on for decades. Needless to say, there are a lot of unethical practices like scamming, corruption and the use of violence in the land-grabbing process. However, we still don’t talk about this major issue as much and maybe that’s why it still exists. Read below to understand what it means and how it can slow down a city’s overall development.
What is encroachment and how can we deal with it?
Encroachment basically refers to when one property owner trespasses and enters the property ground of a neighbor and builds or demolishes the neighbor’s property in order to build their own. For instance, crossing the property line and building a gate around the house or making a garden and taking up extra space from the side of the property line. Basically, it’s unauthorized use of someone else’s property.
Most of the time, encroachment happens unintentionally. For instance, an owner may not be aware of how much property ground he owns to be exact or has misleading information about the extent of his property to which his property lies within legal limits. In cases of making invalid renovations like that, a simple property layout survey can be carried out to find the legal bounds of the property.
Sometimes, having a proper conversation between both the parties can solve the issue. However, if the disagreement regarding whether the violation of someone’s property rights can’t be fixed, the issue can be taken up in the court for a civilized resolution.
Another form of encroachment is structural encroachment. This occurs when a private property extends to a public space, such as onto the sidewalk or a road. This can be a major issue because not only are you dealing with invading someone else’s property but the mass public can also be negatively affected by it. This particular type of encroachment is difficult to deal with since it can hamper the entire infrastructure of an area. At times like this, the government intervenes and takes down the property to make space. Moreover, the property owner may or may not be compensated by the fact that their property is being torn down.
While buying a new property, encroachment can be easily avoided. If the potential homebuyer thinks the given information is not reliable, they can hire a personal investigator to check the measurements of the property. Here at Bproperty, we make sure to provide potential homebuyers properties that are legally valid so that problems like this do not arise in the future.
Effects of encroachment
To this day, people are still committing the crime of land-grabbing (and they are getting away with it, too!). This will have a long-term effects on the economy and our people as individuals. For instance, if the number of land-grabbing cases do not decrease, people are likely to be demotivated to make any sort of property investment, thinking that they might face a similar issue in the future. A lack of trust regarding property buying or not having faith in the system because lawmakers are not dealing with it efficiently means there will not be as many home buyers as there were before. This in turn will affect the real estate sector of an economy as well as other businesses that are directly linked with real estate.
On the other hand, people whose lands are being grabbed have to go through months, if not years, of misery because their property was snatched away from them. The grabbers are sometimes powerful individuals or businesses. Hence, ordinary citizens are often helpless.
Moreover, people also grab lands that were previously rivers or wetlands. We are already running out of space and having this done to our environment will only bring more disastrous long term effects. If proper measures aren’t taken, the real estate sector of Bangladesh can be severely hampered.
