With penalties of up to 10 years in prison, immediate eviction, and demolition of improvements, Law 74-25 toughens the punishment against those who invade urban and rural properties in the Dominican Republic like never before. It remains to be seen whether the courts will apply the new provisions with the same severity with which they were drafted
SANTO DOMINGO. – With up to 10 years in prison, immediate eviction and demolition of improvements, Law 74-25 toughens the punishment like never before against those who invade urban and rural properties in the Dominican Republic.
Since August 3, the Dominican Republic has a new Penal Code for the first time in 142 years, and among the 73 legal figures brought by Organic Law No. 74-25, there is one that the real estate sector had been demanding for years: a chapter dedicated, with name and surname, to punishing those who invade and occupy lands that do not belong to them.
The law, enacted on August 3, 2025, and which came into effect gradually, on Tuesday, August 4 in the National District and on Wednesday, August 5 in the rest of the country, replaces the old Penal Code of 1884.
In that legal century change, the so-called "invaders" went from being an almost unpunished headache to facing penalties that increased up to tenfold.
What the law says, article by article
The new code dedicates an entire Section II, “On the Invasion and Occupation of Property”, to this phenomenon, distributed in four articles:
● Article269 –Trespass. It punishes anyone who enters a property, urban or rural, public or private, without authorization, with 2 to 5 years of imprisonment and a fine of 5 to 10 minimum wages in the public sector. This is a drastic change from the previous code, which punished this conduct with only one day to one year of imprisonment.
● Article270 – Invasionor Occupation.It punishes anyone who invades or occupies another person's property with 2 to 3 years of imprisonment and a fine of 9 to 15 minimum wages. The law does not stop at those who set foot on the land: it also applies to those who “sponsor, induce, promote or order” the invasion, that is, the organizers and financiers behind the land seizures.
● Article271 –Aggravated. The penalty increases to 5 to 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of 10 to 20 minimum wages when the invasion involves violence, use or threat with a weapon, participation of a public official, two or more perpetrators, or the construction of improvements on the invaded land.
● Article272 – Attempt. Even the attempt to invade is punished the same as if the crime had been consummated.
What matters most to landlords: immediate eviction
Beyond prison sentences, the change most celebrated by developers and owners lies in the fine print: the law mandates that sentences include the permanent eviction of occupants and the confiscation or demolition of improvements made, and that these measures be carried out provisionally and without bail, even if the sentence has pending appeals.
For years, that was precisely the crux of the matter: a plot of land could remain occupied for months or years while the legal process moved at a snail's pace, and the eviction was diluted in appeals.
Now, at least on paper, the owner does not have to wait for the case to be finalized to regain physical control of his land.
When does the flagrancy period end?
In an opinion column published in Diario Libre (Agora section, May 28, 2026), prosecutor Edwin Cuello argued that the occupation of land should be treated as a "continuous flagrancy": in his words, "the invasion and illegal occupation of real estate constitutes, by definition, a continuous flagrant crime," since "occupation is a fixed execution conduct that continues uninterruptedly over time.".
If that criterion were to prevail in the courts, as long as the invader remains inside the property the crime would continue to be committed in the present time, which would allow for an immediate eviction without depending on an additional court order, in connection with the time limits for flagrant offenses set by article 228 of the new Criminal Procedure Code.
It is an individual thesis, not yet a consolidated jurisprudence, but it is the angle that will decide, in practice, whether the law is felt in the streets or remains in the text.
Why this is real estate news
Land invasions, both urban and rural, have been for decades one of the main obstacles to investment and project development in the Dominican Republic: endless eviction proceedings, "taken" lands that lose market value, and developers who avoid buying plots in areas with a history of occupations.
With sentences now reaching up to 10 years and evictions enforceable without bail, the message of the new Penal Code is direct: squatting is no longer a low-risk gamble.
The question that remains is whether the courts will apply this new legal architecture with the same forcefulness with which it was written.
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