nytmare: If only there was some centralized registry that recorded exactly who owned what land.

Pedantically, even within individual states within the United States, there's no centralized authority in many cases.  Where I live, the county recorder's office, the same entity that handles court records and some vital records such as birth and death certificates as well as election records, also handles property deeds.  And frankly those are, to an extent, on an honor-system.  If someone comes in to file something with the recorder's office and it looks legitimate then the clerk will file it.  It now becomes necessary for legitimate owners to challenge fraudulent claims, and may also lead to criminal charges, but it's not straightforward by any means.

This is partly why title insurance is perfunctory when transacting real estate, because on those thankfully rare occurrences when mistakes are made, that insurance is supposed to settle it, usually paying off the claimant rather than forcing eviction.  Because mistskes are comparatively rare it's not typically expensive to buy that coverage.

Now if real estate fraud is more common over years or decades then that could lead to downstream effects.  Competing claims for the same land sort of thing.  I wonder if that's what happened here.

Concrete Donkey: ClavellBCMI: So, a property ownership dispute involving hotels ended up in surprise evictions, and without the supposed management of the hotels realizing this? I suspect bribery was involved somewhere.

oh they probably knew about it and just didnt tell anyone to get as much money as possible before they run

Or if property title problems are widespread, it may just be SOP to continue operating, because continued operation as if rightful might help support one's claims of legitimacy, and because if everyone facing disputes stopped operating then perhaps no one would be operating at all.