Juan Antonio Matiz Monroy — Lawyer, Universidad de los Andes · Specialist in Criminal Law, Universidad Sergio Arboleda · Professional licence 294.746 (C.S.J.)
There is a reason why a burglary at home leaves a sense of helplessness different from other offences. It is not only the loss of property or the violation of the most intimate space: it is that, almost always, it is a planned act. Whoever enters someone else’s home has studied the timetable, assessed the ways in and taken deliberate precautions not to be identified. The offence is designed, from conception, to leave no trace. That is why the victim’s first reaction is usually unease and an almost total pessimism: the conviction that, with no culprit in sight, there is absolutely nothing to be done.
That conviction is understandable, but it is a diagnostic error. That the burglar is not identified does not close off the routes of response, because redress does not depend only on the criminal proceeding; but each of those routes runs on deadlines of its own and speaks a different language, and that is why waiting to see whether the culprit turns up is what usually closes the doors that were in fact open. This article offers no easy comfort and no unrealistic promises: it offers the opposite, an objective description of the tools Colombian law makes available to someone burgled at home, even where the person responsible is never identified.
There are three fronts —the criminal investigation, the civil liability of those under a duty to look after the place, and the claim on the insurer— and none of them depends, at its starting point, on knowing who entered the house. Hence the structure of this piece: to examine what each route requires separately and then why they only make real sense if travelled at the same time.
1. Residential burglary in Colombia: the paradox of the planned burglary
The reasoning that leads to “there is nothing to be done” has an internal logic worth examining, because that is precisely where it goes wrong. Faced with a shocking event, the mind fixes on the most visible fact —here, that no one knows who it was— and builds a general conclusion on it. If there is no identified culprit, it is assumed, there is no proceeding; and if there is no proceeding, there is no redress. That chain looks reasonable, but it rests on a false premise: that every legal response depends on identifying the perpetrator.
It does not. In a burglary at a home, the legal order reacts on several planes at once. The first is criminal: where the taking is committed —in the terms of the statute— «by arbitrary, deceitful or clandestine entry into or remaining in an inhabited place or its immediate outbuildings», the conduct is aggravated theft (article 240, num. 3, of the Criminal Code), carrying six to fourteen years’ imprisonment, and it is investigated of the authorities’ own motion: the State is obliged to investigate it, without the victim having to “activate” anything beyond the report. But besides the criminal plane there are civil and contractual planes that operate on a logic of their own and that, as will be seen, rest on the breach by third parties —not on the identity of the thief—.
That an offence was planned so as to leave no trace therefore says a great deal about the difficulty of catching the perpetrator, but very little about the victim’s prospects of redress. They are separate planes, and the feeling that “all is lost” comes from fusing the two into one. Separating them is the first technical step —and also the first realistic relief— after a burglary at home: while it is being decided whether the culprit will appear, there are decisions that can already be taken and deadlines that are already running.
2. First route — The criminal proceeding as an investigative instrument
Because burglary is an offence, the first tool is the criminal investigation. It is worth being honest about its scope: the investigation is an obligation of means, not of result. Neither the prosecution nor the judicial police guarantee the capture of the person responsible. What they do deploy is a set of real identification techniques which, properly driven, appreciably improve the probability of a result, even against a planned burglary.
It all begins with the report, which —to insist— does not require identifying the perpetrator: article 69 of Ley 906 de 2004 asks for a detailed account of the facts, not a name. Once the offence is reported, the judicial police carry out immediately the urgent acts: inspection of the scene, technical collection of physical evidence under chain of custody, and interviews, with an executive report to the prosecutor within the following 36 hours (article 205 of Ley 906 de 2004).
The techniques that can produce a result
Faced with an apparently “clueless” burglary, the investigation has several concrete lines of work. The interview (article 206 of Ley 906 de 2004) is the base technique for gathering information from neighbours, porters, security staff and passers-by; an early, well-conducted interview rescues details —a vehicle, a time, a familiar face— that dissolve as the days pass. Anyone called to one of those interviews would do well to know beforehand what rights and duties they have as a witness; and where the official investigation does not advance, that field work can be reinforced with a private forensic investigator.
To that is added the checking of patterns and modus operandi. Burglaries at homes are rarely isolated: they usually follow a pattern repeated in an area, and the criminal analysis carried out by the judicial police —cross-referencing information between cases, areas and dates— allows reports that would look unsolvable on their own to be connected. This is not a rule with a name of its own, but a forensic practice grounded in the functions of the judicial police (articles 200 and following of Ley 906 de 2004) and in the methodological programme the prosecutor designs in order to identify the perpetrators (article 207).
Then there is technical evidence. Fingerprint comparison, tracing goods by serial number and, above all, CCTV footage —from the property itself or from neighbours— are items of physical evidence which, collected in time and with chain of custody, can be decisive. The practical consequence is immediate: recordings are overwritten within days, so recovering them is a race against the clock.
In that push the victim is not a spectator, because articles 11 and 132 to 137 of Ley 906 de 2004 recognise the right to be heard, to put in evidence, to receive information and to take part in the proceeding through a lawyer. In practice, a represented victim applies for specific steps, produces the neighbours’ CCTV footage, points to the patterns they know of in the area and follows up so that the case is not closed for inactivity; the difference between a report that sleeps and an investigation that moves is usually in that push.
None of this, however, ensures that the culprit appears, and that is exactly the reason not to stop here: the criminal route is valuable, but it is not the only one, and its calendar does not suspend that of the others.
3. Second route — The civil liability of managers and security companies
Here lies, frequently, the most ignored and at the same time most powerful possibility. In many burglaries at homes —above all in gated developments and blocks of flats— there were third parties under a duty to look after or watch over the place: the management of the condominium and the security company engaged. Where that duty was breached and that failure facilitated the burglary, those third parties may be civilly liable for the loss, and this liability has a decisive feature: it does not depend on identifying the thief, because it is not founded on authorship of the burglary but on the fault of whoever was to keep custody and did not do so with due diligence.
The management and the condominium
Law 675 of 2001, which governs horizontal property, imposes on the manager the duty to «look after and watch over the common property» and to administer it diligently (article 51), and provides that they answer for loss caused by wilful misconduct or negligence (article 50). Where the condominium effectively assumed custody of an area —for example, a car park with access control, barriers, tickets and security staff— and a vehicle or object is stolen through a failure in that control, the liability can approach that of a deposit, governed by the rules of contract (articles 1602 to 1604 and 1613 to 1614 of the Civil Code), where the duty to keep and return is especially demanding.
It is worth fixing the limit precisely, however, because the seriousness of the claim depends on it: the condominium is not a universal insurer against burglary and does not answer for everything that happens inside the development merely because it happened there. It answers where there was a demonstrable failure in the duty of care it assumed, and the rule remains that of deposit: one answers for what was actually received into custody, not for goods that were never handed over. Recognising that limit does not weaken the claim: it makes it serious and credible, and a credible claim is the only kind a judge can examine.
The private security company
Security companies are governed by the Private Security Statute (Decreto-Ley 356 de 1994) and are supervised by the Superintendence of Private Security. Their obligation is, as a rule, one of means: they undertake to provide the service with due technique and care, not to guarantee that a burglary will never happen, so they are not automatically liable. But they are liable where fault or negligence is proved: abandoning the post, failing to carry out the agreed patrols, failure to activate protocols, entry allowed without control.
Towards whoever engaged the service —the condominium or the owner— that liability is contractual (articles 1602 to 1604 and 1613 to 1614 of the Civil Code); towards residents or third parties with no contractual link, it is non-contractual (articles 2341 and 2347 of the Civil Code), including the company’s liability for the acts of its own employees. Two planes should be distinguished: a complaint to the Superintendence of Private Security may lead to administrative sanctions on the company, but it does not compensate the victim; compensation is obtained through the civil courts.
The practical consequence of all the above is that this route does not need the thief. Both the liability of the manager and the condominium and that of the security company rest on their own breach of a duty of care or supervision, not on authorship of the burglary, and they therefore operate even if the offender is never identified: what has to be proved is not who stole, but that whoever was to keep custody failed to do so with the diligence required of them and that the failure facilitated the harm. It is also the route that suffers most from waiting, because the log books, access records and recordings that sustain it are not kept indefinitely.
4. Third route — The claim on the insurer
The third route shares the same virtue: it is not interested in who entered the house, but in establishing that the loss occurred. Many home policies —and the condominium’s, where the general meeting took one out— include cover for theft. It should be noted that compulsory insurance of common areas in horizontal property covers fire and earthquake (article 15 of Ley 675 de 2001); theft cover is voluntary and depends on its having been taken out, so reviewing what policies exist is one of the first tasks in the case.
Article 1077 of the Commercial Code is the key: it falls to the insured to show that the loss occurred and its amount, and nowhere is identification of the perpetrator required. Indeed, article 1096 provides that the insurer that pays is subrogated to the rights against the person responsible, so it is the company, not the victim, that pursues them afterwards.
Once the claim is submitted with its supporting material, the insurer has one month to pay; after that period interest for late payment accrues (article 1080), and if the objection is not serious and well founded, the policy is enforceable as an executive title (article 1053). Against improper objections, the victim can turn to the Financial Superintendence and to the entity’s Financial Consumer Ombudsman.
There is, however, one point no victim should overlook, because it is the one that most frequently frustrates an otherwise valid claim: actions under an insurance contract are time-barred, as a rule, after two (2) years from when the insured knew or should have known of the event (article 1081 of the Commercial Code), a period that cannot be extended by agreement of the parties. That clock runs in parallel with the criminal proceeding and does not stop while waiting to see whether the culprit appears, so documenting the loss from the first days —inventory, invoices, photographs, a copy of the report— is what sustains this route and what stops it closing by itself.
5. When the perpetrator appears: redress
If the investigation succeeds and the person responsible is identified and convicted, the possibility opens of recovering what was lost directly from them. The basis is article 2341 of the Civil Code: whoever causes harm is obliged to compensate it. Within the criminal proceeding, the tool is the full-redress proceeding (articles 102 to 108 of Ley 906 de 2004), which lies once the conviction is final and lapses thirty (30) days after the judgment becomes final (article 106); article 108 allows the perpetrator’s insurer to be called in, although only for the purposes of conciliation, since it cannot be ordered to pay in that proceeding.
As a free-standing alternative there is an ordinary civil claim, which does not require a prior conviction but does require an identified and solvent defendant. The same loss cannot be recovered twice, so choosing the right route is a strategic decision. The temporal nuance is worth underlining: this scenario, the most intuitive for the victim, is also the most uncertain and the latest, all the more reason for the other routes not to be left in suspense while its outcome is awaited.
Since July 2025 there is also a closing route worth knowing about. Ley 2477 de 2025 added article 78A to the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows the criminal action to be extinguished through full redress of the harm in offences against property, with the exception of theft aggravated by violence and of extortion. The loss is assessed on an expert’s valuation, unless the amount is agreed, and extinction does not lie in respect of anyone already favoured by the same mechanism in the previous five years. For the person affected this has two sides: it can considerably speed up effective redress —which is, in the end, what is being sought— but it closes the criminal proceeding, so accepting the valuation or agreeing a different amount is not a formality: it defines the outcome.
6. Why one front is not enough
The three routes are not alternatives among which one must be chosen: they are pieces of a single strategy advancing in parallel, with their own calendars and logics. The costliest error after a burglary at home is usually not choosing badly, but concentrating on a single front and letting the others expire through inaction.
Someone who attends only to the criminal side can see the insurance claim time-barred after two years. Someone who relies only on the insurance gives up the investigation —which is, moreover, what produces the evidence supporting the insurer’s subrogation and the claim against the third parties responsible—. And someone who does not examine in time the liability of the manager or the security company often lets slip the route with the greatest real probability of redress, because it rests on a documentable breach and not on the uncertain capture of the thief.
From that follows the real cost of waiting. Each route speaks a different language —criminal, civil and insurance— and each has its own clock, so coordinating them requires a view that integrates the three subjects from day one: driving the investigation so that the evidence is not lost, examining the security contract and the condominium rules to assess third-party liability, and submitting the insurance claim within the period. A burglary case well handled is not a sum of loose formalities, but a single strategy with three synchronised fronts; waiting to see whether the culprit appears is, almost always, what ends up closing the doors that were in fact open.
7. From the consultation to representation: a strategy for the three routes
The difficulty in these cases is not in each route separately, but in articulating them in order and in time. That is why the legal work is structured in stages, so that the victim keeps control of the decisions while each front advances at its moment. This is how, in practice, the path from the first conversation to full representation of the case is ordered.
Stage 1 — Diagnosis and securing the evidence. The initial consultation reviews the available policies, the security contract and the condominium rules, orders the inventory of what was lost and defines at once what evidence —recordings, photographs, access records— must be preserved before it disappears.
Stage 2 — Report and insurance claim. The report is filed —even against an unidentified person— to activate the prosecution’s investigation, and in parallel the claim is submitted to the insurer with the material establishing occurrence and amount, within the period.
Stage 3 — Driving the investigation and analysing third-party liability. As the victim’s representatives, we contribute lines of investigation and follow up on identification, while assessing whether there was a failure in the duty of care of the manager, the condominium or the security company that opens the civil route.
Stage 4 — Redress on every available front. Depending on the outcome, the full-redress proceeding or a civil action against the perpetrator is pursued, civil actions are brought against the third parties responsible, and the indemnity and subrogation are coordinated with the insurer.
That order answers a simple reason: the most decisive decisions in a burglary case are taken in the first days, when the evidence still exists and the deadlines are only starting to run. Timely strategic guidance allows the three routes to be ordered before any of them closes through the passage of time, which is precisely what happens when everything is postponed pending the question of who entered the house.
8. Conclusions
That a burglary at home was planned to leave no trace says a great deal about the difficulty of catching the perpetrator. It says very little about the prospects of redress. The conduct is aggravated theft, investigated of the authorities’ own motion, and the report does not require a name. The investigation is an obligation of means, but it has interviews, analysis of patterns and technical evidence. CCTV footage is overwritten within days.
The other two routes do not need the thief. The condominium and the security company may be liable where a demonstrable failure in their duty of care facilitated the burglary. A policy with theft cover requires proof of the loss and its amount, not of the perpetrator’s identity. That action is, as a rule, time-barred after two years (article 1081 of the Commercial Code). If the person responsible appears, the full-redress proceeding becomes available. That is why the three routes advance in parallel: attending to only one usually lets the others expire.
Ordering those fronts in the first days, while the evidence still exists, is the purpose of the initial consultation. In it we review the policies, the security contract and the condominium rules, and define what evidence to preserve. From that diagnosis, the firm can assist with filing the criminal complaint and take on victim representation throughout the case.
Frequently asked questions
What people usually ask us
If the burglary was planned and there are no suspects, can I really do anything?
Yes. That the perpetrator is not identified does not close off the routes of response. Redress does not depend, at its starting point, on knowing who entered the house: the civil liability of the manager, the condominium or the security company rests on their own breach of a duty of care, and the insurance claim rests on the contract. At the same time, the criminal investigation offers real tools of identification. Confusing “there is no identified culprit” with “there is nothing to be done” is a frequent diagnostic error.
What can the prosecution do to identify those responsible?
The investigation is an obligation of means, not of result, but it has concrete techniques: the judicial police’s urgent acts within 36 hours (article 205 of Ley 906 de 2004), interviews with neighbours, porters and security staff (article 206), analysis of patterns and modus operandi across cases in the area, and technical evidence —fingerprint comparison and, above all, CCTV— collected with chain of custody. Driving these steps in time appreciably improves the probability of a result.
Can the management or the condominium be liable for a burglary in the complex?
They can be liable where there was a demonstrable failure in the duty to look after and watch over the common property that the law imposes on the manager (article 51 of Ley 675 de 2001), who answers for loss caused by wilful misconduct or negligence (article 50). The condominium is not a universal insurer: it does not answer for every burglary, but where its negligence in the custody it assumed facilitated the harm. This route does not require identifying the thief, because it rests on the breach by the party under the duty of custody.
Can the security company be liable?
Yes, where fault or negligence in the service is proved: abandoning the post, failing to carry out the agreed patrols, absence of protocols or entry allowed without control. Its obligation is, as a rule, one of means (Decreto-Ley 356 de 1994), so it is not automatically liable for every burglary. Towards whoever engaged it the liability is contractual; towards third parties, non-contractual (articles 2341 and 2347 of the Civil Code). A complaint to the Superintendence of Private Security may bring sanctions on the company, but compensation is obtained through the civil courts.
Will the insurer pay even if the thief is never caught?
In policies with theft cover, the indemnity does not depend on identifying the perpetrator. Article 1077 of the Commercial Code requires proof that the loss occurred and of its amount, not the identity of the person responsible; and the insurer that pays is subrogated to the rights against the perpetrator (article 1096). The actual cover depends on the terms of each policy, so it should be reviewed carefully.
What time limit do I have to claim on the insurance after a burglary?
Actions under an insurance contract are time-barred, as a rule, after two (2) years from when the insured knew or should have known of the event (ordinary limitation under article 1081 of the Commercial Code), a period that cannot be extended by agreement of the parties. That is why the claim should not be postponed pending the outcome of the criminal proceeding: the two calendars run in parallel.
Why do I need representation across several areas for a burglary at my home?
Because a burglary at a home opens three fronts with different logics and deadlines: the criminal one (identification of the perpetrator and production of evidence), the civil one (liability of managers, condominiums and security companies) and the insurance one (a two-year limitation period). Attending to only one usually lets the others expire. Representation that integrates criminal, civil and insurance law allows the three routes to be synchronised and stops any of them closing through the passage of time.
Legal and bibliographic references
Colombia. Ley 599 de 2000, Código Penal. Artículos 239, 240 y 241 (hurto, hurto calificado y circunstancias de agravación).
Colombia. Ley 906 de 2004, Código de Procedimiento Penal. Artículos 11, 66, 69, 102 a 108, 132 a 137, 200, 205, 206 y 207.
Colombia. Ley 2477 de 2025. Artículo 78A del Código de Procedimiento Penal (extinción de la acción penal por reparación integral). Diario Oficial 53.178 del 11 de julio de 2025.
Colombia. Ley 675 de 2001, Régimen de Propiedad Horizontal. Artículos 15, 32, 50 y 51.
Colombia. Decreto-Ley 356 de 1994, Estatuto de Vigilancia y Seguridad Privada.
Colombia. Código Civil. Artículos 1602 a 1604, 1613, 1614, 2341 y 2347.
Colombia. Código de Comercio (Decreto 410 de 1971). Artículos 1053, 1077, 1080, 1081 y 1096 (contrato de seguro).
Note: This content is informative and does not constitute legal advice on a particular case. The applicable cover, penalties, liabilities and time limits depend on the particular circumstances, on the terms of each policy and on each contract.
About the author
Juan Antonio Matiz Monroy — A graduate of the Universidad de los Andes (2017) with a specialisation in Criminal Law from the Universidad Sergio Arboleda (2021), he built a solid command of oral litigation at the Universidad del Rosario and at the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. He sharpened his rigour in evidential reasoning with CESJUL and the Universidad Externado de Colombia. In parallel he went deeper into asset forfeiture —a field that requires understanding the State’s logic on property with the same rigour with which liberty is defended—. He is currently a candidate for the Master’s in Evidential Reasoning at the Universitat de Girona (Spain) and the Università degli Studi di Genova (Italy). Professional licence 294.746 (C.S.J.).