Sanctions, Certified Claims, Compliance, and International Property Advisory
Few areas of U.S. law reward preparation as generously, or punish improvisation as severely, as Cuba. Sixty years of statutes, regulations, executive actions, and litigation have produced a legal landscape in which the same transaction may be lawful, licensable, or prosecutable depending on facts that are easy to miss and difficult to reconstruct after the fact.
Poblete Tamargo LLP provides interdisciplinary, forward-thinking counsel to help you move through that landscape with confidence. We are a Washington, D.C.-area firm with a Florida presence, built around federal regulatory practice, national security law, and public policy; we have advised companies, families, religious institutions, investors, and claimholders on Cuba matters for more than 15 years. Our objective in every engagement is a workable answer: a path to closing, a license, a resolution, or a well-documented decision not to proceed.
Our team
Our multilingual team combines U.S.-licensed attorneys, former senior federal officials, and policy advisors with substantial prior government service. It also includes something unusual among U.S. firms handling Cuba matters: advisors who trained and practiced in the Cuban legal system before leaving the island, including a former judge of the Cuban judiciary. They bring firsthand knowledge of how Cuban property registries, housing law, notarial practice, and administrative process actually function, as distinct from how they are described in promotional materials or on social media (Note: These advisors are not licensed to practice law in the United States; they support the firm’s U.S.-licensed attorneys, who are responsible for all legal advice rendered).
How we help you
Certified and uncertified Cuban claims. The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission certified 5,913 claims against the Government of Cuba, the largest uncompensated expropriation program in U.S. history. Our co-founder, Mauricio J. Tamargo, is a former Chairman of the FCSC. We advise certified claim holders on preservation of claim ownership and documentation, on succession and estate questions affecting claim title, and on positioning in advance of any future government-to-government settlement; we advise holders of uncertified claims on valuation, evidentiary development, and the practical limits of their position. Our Cuba work spans sanctions compliance, certified claims, and property advisory; that practice is described in more detail on our Cuba Practice Page.
OFAC and sanctions compliance. Transaction vetting and risk analysis under the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 515: authorization analysis under the applicable general licenses, screening against the Specially Designated Nationals List and the State Department’s Cuba Restricted List and Cuba Prohibited Accommodations List, ownership analysis under OFAC’s fifty percent rule, and travel, remittance, and financial channel questions.
Specific license applications. Where no general license reaches the transaction, we prepare and prosecute specific license applications: framing the request, assembling the supporting record, and managing the agency relationship through review. We take a deliberate view of when to file, when to supplement, and when to wait.
Enforcement, defense, and voluntary self-disclosure. Response to OFAC administrative subpoenas and requests for information; assessment of whether a voluntary self-disclosure is advisable; penalty mitigation under the Economic Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines; and negotiation toward cautionary letters and no-action outcomes rather than public enforcement.
Helms-Burton Act Title III. Counsel to both claim holders and companies exposed to trafficking allegations. See the detailed discussion below.
Export controls. Compliance counseling under the Export Administration Regulations governing the transfer of items, software, and technology to Cuba, including license exception analysis and classification questions, is coordinated with our analysis so that the two regimes are answered together rather than sequentially.
Due diligence investigations. Independent background verification and risk profiling of counterparties, assets, chains of title, and foreign entities, drawing on U.S. records, Cuban registry knowledge, and offshore corporate databases.
Cross-border real estate and asset vetting. Structured legal review for individuals and entities evaluating property interests that touch Cuba, whether directly or through third-country structures.
Public policy and advocacy. Federal legislative and executive branch engagement on Cuba policy, sanctions modification, licensing, and claims; congressional relations; and coalition work through our affiliated rule-of-law nonprofit where the matter warrants it.
Helms-Burton Act, Title III: what it actually requires
Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996 gives a U.S. national who owns a claim to property confiscated by the Cuban Government on or after January 1, 1959, a federal cause of action against any person who traffics in that property. Suspended by every President from 1996 until 2019, the right of action is now live, and the case law is developing quickly.
Four points determine most outcomes:
Ownership and certification. A claim certified by the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission is conclusive proof of ownership in a Title III action. An uncertified claim must be proven, must exceed the statutory dollar threshold exclusive of interest, costs, and attorneys’ fees, and may be referred to the Commission as special master for valuation.
Acquisition timing. A claim acquired after March 12, 1996, including by inheritance, is generally barred. This single provision disposes of a great many prospective cases, and it should be the first question asked, not the last.
What counts as trafficking? The statutory definition is broad and reaches sale, transfer, use, benefit, management, and participation in another’s trafficking; it also contains exceptions, including for lawful travel and certain transactions incident to it. Exposure analysis turns on the specific commercial relationship, not on general presence in the Cuban market.
Notice and timing. Treble damages depend on statutory notice and a waiting period; actions are subject to a limitations period running from cessation of trafficking. Sequencing matters, and it is frequently mishandled.
We approach Title III with a strong preference for resolution before filing. A properly assembled claim file, a precise notice letter, and a credible demonstration that the claimant can and will proceed resolve more matters than a complaint does, and they do so without the publicity, cost, and multi-year timeline of federal litigation. We litigate when the file requires it. We do not treat litigation as the objective.
Advisory: the reality of Cuba’s residential real estate market
Social media advertising has created a persistent impression that Americans and other persons with exposure to the US may now buy homes in Cuba. That impression is wrong.
Two independent legal systems block the transaction. Under Cuban law, ownership of housing is restricted to Cuban citizens permanently resident on the island and to certain permanent residents; a foreign buyer without that status cannot hold title in his own name. Under U.S. law, persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction have no general authorization to purchase residential real property in Cuba, and the transaction is therefore prohibited absent a specific license that OFAC does not, as a practical matter, grant for this purpose.
The workarounds marketed online consist almost entirely of holding title through a Cuban national. The consequences are as follows:
Sanctions exposure. Unauthorized deployment of U.S. capital into a comprehensively sanctioned jurisdiction carries substantial civil penalties, and willful violations carry criminal exposure. Structuring the payment through a third country does not cure the problem; it usually aggravates it.
Title III exposure. If the property was confiscated on or after January 1, 1959 from an owner who is now a U.S. national, the purchaser may become a defendant in federal court. Residential property in Havana’s most desirable neighborhoods is disproportionately likely to fall into this category.
No recourse. A contract that a U.S. person cannot lawfully perform will not be enforced by a U.S. court, and no U.S. consular or diplomatic channel exists to recover the money. The nominal Cuban titleholder holds the asset in fact as well as in name. Disputes of this kind are, in our experience, unrecoverable.
What is available is narrower and less exciting: leasing arrangements for certain authorized activities, lodging in private Cuban residences incident to authorized travel, and support for independent Cuban entrepreneurs within defined limits. Where a client’s actual objective is presence, family accommodation, or eventual position in a reopened market, there are lawful ways to prepare for it.
Where we start
Most Cuba questions can be answered, or narrowed to a decision, in a single structured review. We offer a fixed-fee Cuba Transaction and Exposure Assessment: you send us the facts, we return a written analysis of authorization status, sanctions and Title III exposure, diligence gaps, and available paths forward. If the matter proceeds, the assessment becomes the foundation of the engagement; if it does not, you have a documented record of a considered decision.
Connect with our team
If you are evaluating a transaction, holding a claim, facing an agency inquiry, or reviewing a property dispute, consult us before taking action.
This page is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice, nor does reviewing it create an attorney-client relationship. Cuba sanctions and export control requirements change frequently; the analysis applicable to your situation depends on its specific facts. Poblete Tamargo LLP attorneys are licensed in the jurisdictions identified on their individual profiles.