Título IV. De la indemnización

The compensation must include satisfaction to the owner of the value of the property and all damage, depreciation and expenditures that are a consequence of the expropriation.

The compensation shall be fixed in money, unless the expropriating party and the expropriated party agree on another form of payment.

The compensation, when no agreement can be reached between the expropriating entity and the expropriated party, shall be fixed by expert appraisers who, for its determination, shall take into consideration the elements, circumstances and conditions determining its real price, without being subject exclusively to declarations or official records or pre-existing documents, fundamentally:

a.The current value of the property, as the principal basis;

b.The reciprocal offers made by both parties; and

c.The relevant means of evidence offered by the parties.

The expert appraisers shall be appointed in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure and shall have the powers established therein; they must duly state the reasons for their opinions, being liable for the damages arising from their conduct and for any lack of probity they commit.

In cases of partial expropriation, the greater value that may result for the remaining fraction shall be taken into account, insofar as it is a consequence of an improvement or appreciation due to the nature of the work to be undertaken in proportion to the dimensions of the remainder or when, as a result of the works to be undertaken, such remaining fraction increases in price by reason of its new situation. In both cases the greater value shall be deducted from the compensation.

The compensation that by reason of partial forced expropriation is to correspond to the owner shall not exceed, in any case, the proportional value corresponding to the expropriated part of the immovable property in accordance with the cadastral land valuation plan of the capital city, signed by the representative of the Tribunal and Comptroller of Accounts and other public officials who participated in its preparation and made on July 3, 1952, the table of reduction of values and the scale for construction appraisals currently used by the Municipality of this capital or which in the future may be put into force, increasing its amount by up to 30% for damages.

If it concerns total forced expropriation of an immovable property or when the part of the expropriated immovable property remaining to its owner lacks commercial value in the judgment of the experts, the compensation fixed, by mutual agreement or by experts, shall not exceed, in any case, the total value of the immovable property calculated in accordance with the valuation plan, table of reduction of values and scale for construction appraisals referred to in the preceding paragraph, increased by up to 30% for damages.

The foregoing provisions shall govern for cases of expropriation of immovable property included in the aforementioned plan, existing in the Office of the Municipal Cadastre of this city.

As to the amount of compensation for rural or urban immovable property located in any place of the Republic, with the exception of those included in the aforementioned plan, it shall not exceed the value stated in the opinion that for such purpose must be issued by the Agricultural and Appraisal Department of the National Mortgage Bank of Guatemala after hearing the respective Municipality.

In cases of partial or total expropriation of movable or immovable property, whose abandonment is evidenced by lack of buildings or if such buildings were inadequate in the case of urban estates or by lack of cultivation when referring to rural estates, and which belong to persons who on the date on which public utility and necessity or social interest had been decreed were domiciled outside the Republic or had no known domicile, the maximum limit of compensation shall be:

a.The value fixed by the experts, if it concerns movable property; and

b.The value increased by 30% that the property had in the Fiscal Registry, corresponding to the date on which the declaration of public utility or necessity or social interest had been made, when dealing with immovable property.

With respect to small cultivated agricultural properties, not larger than five manzanas, the amount of the compensation shall be fixed by experts, as stipulated in the present law, but said compensation shall not be subject to the limits set forth in the preceding article.

Improvements made to the property subject to expropriation within the six months following the respective declaration shall not be subject to compensation, except those that were necessary.

Contracts, whether or not transferring ownership, entered into by the owner after the act that declared the property subject to expropriation do not prevent such expropriation, as the holder of the new right shall be deemed subrogated in the rights and obligations of the former owner. Nor shall increases in the fiscal registration, nor mortgage encumbrances imposed on the immovables after the declaration of public utility and necessity of the work affecting them, be taken into consideration.

Compensation must be prior to the expropriation of the property. Only in cases of invasion or attack on the national territory, or serious disturbance of internal order, it is not mandatory that compensation be prior.