The Big Goa Land Grab

Foreigners came seeking paradise; they’re now in a complicated legal hell
by Elizabeth Flock | Nov 11, 2009

Read it at Forbes

Last December, Nicholas Papa and Michael Cooper got an early Christmas present: A show cause notice from the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE). It carried two messages: Your home may soon be confiscated; you will be fined three times the land’s value.

Papa and Cooper (Nick and Mick, as they call themselves) moved to Goa from the UK nine years ago. In Aldona, a few kilometres from the beach, they bought a bungalow for Rs. 30 lakh and spent another Rs. 18 lakh renovating it, intending to retire there on Cooper’s pension fund. Under the stress of possibly losing their life savings and home, Cooper, 65, had a mental breakdown this January. “They want us to leave,” says Papa, “but won’t let us sell our house, won’t let us gift it. We gave up everything to come here, and now we will lose it all.”

More than 400 foreigners — mostly British — have received similar notices from the DoE.

Paradise Lost
The story of Westerner’s choosing Goa as a place to settle down began when Western hippies first discovered Goa’s beaches. Certainly, laid-back North Goa lured many smitten visitors to set up home there. From 2000 to 2005, the number of foreign landowners swelled. Many were Britons who planned to retire there, on pension or dole money.

By 2004, land values — and tensions — were rising. Many