Family evicted after losing land dispute case

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

A fam­i­ly from San Juan has been giv­en six months to va­cate their home, which was built on land they have been oc­cu­py­ing for over 70 years.

High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed made the or­der on Tues­day as he re­solved a long-stand­ing prop­er­ty dis­pute be­tween the fam­i­ly and the cur­rent own­er of the land.

In the law­suit, the land own­er Ir­ma Se­u­nath sued Elisa Mor­gan, and her hus­band Kei­th Moore over their con­tin­ued oc­cu­pa­tion of the land at Mis­sion Road in San Juan.

Se­u­nath’s grand­fa­ther and sev­er­al of his rel­a­tives ac­quired the land in 1944.

In 1957, Se­u­nath’s grand­fa­ther grant­ed Mor­gan’s grand­fa­ther Or­mond a 21-year lease for the land, on which he built a house.

In 1978, Se­u­nath’ grand­fa­ther re­newed the lease with an in­crease in an­nu­al rent.

Sev­er­al years lat­er, Mor­gan’s grand­fa­ther’s ten­an­cy was con­vert­ed to a statu­to­ry ten­an­cy un­der the Land Ten­ants (Se­cu­ri­ty of Tenure) Act.

Mor­gan’s grand­fa­ther lived on the prop­er­ty with his fam­i­ly in­clud­ing Mor­gan un­til he died in 1994.

In 2009, Se­u­nath vis­it­ed the prop­er­ty to col­lect rent on be­half of her grand­fa­ther’s sur­viv­ing rel­a­tive Ed­ward Kassi­nath but Mor­gan and Moore re­fused.

Se­u­nath claimed that in 2015 she con­tact­ed the cou­ple and warned them against car­ry­ing out con­struc­tion or ren­o­va­tion work on the prop­er­ty.

Kassi­nath even­tu­al­ly con­veyed the land to Se­u­nath be­fore he died.

The cou­ple ig­nored Se­u­nath’s warn­ing and con­tin­ued con­struc­tion in­clud­ing build­ing a perime­ter wall.

Se­u­nath served a no­tice to quit for the cou­ple to va­cate the prop­er­ty but they re­mained lead­ing to the fil­ing of the case.

The cou­ple filed a counter-claim in which they al­leged that they ac­quired an eq­ui­table in­ter­est in the land by spend­ing $387,676.71 on ren­o­va­tions and main­te­nance, and cul­ti­vat­ing fruit trees on it.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed found the cou­ple could not dis­pute Se­u­nath’s ti­tle to the land.

In re­ject­ing their claim of eq­ui­table in­ter­est, Jus­tice Mo­hammed raised is­sues with the cou­ple’s al­le­ga­tions in­clud­ing over their claims that Kassi­nath had promised to sell them the land at a re­duced rate be­fore pass­ing own­er­ship to Se­u­nath.

“I find that the De­fen­dants’ ev­i­dence con­sti­tut­ed a de­vi­a­tion from their plead­ed case, which led this Court to im­me­di­ate­ly ques­tion the De­fen­dants’ cred­i­bil­i­ty,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

“The du­bi­ous and im­prob­a­ble cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the pur­port­ed promise ren­dered it nec­es­sary for me to ul­ti­mate­ly find the ab­sence of such a promise,” he added.

He ruled that Se­u­nath was en­ti­tled to $5,000 in nom­i­nal dam­ages for tres­pass, and $2,280 to cov­er the land rental af­ter Se­u­nath ob­tained the ti­tle for the prop­er­ty.

In di­rect­ing the cou­ple to va­cate the prop­er­ty, Jus­tice Mo­hammed not­ed that he took no plea­sure in mak­ing the or­der which dis­placed the fam­i­ly from the on­ly home they have known.

“In fact, it is quite the op­po­site, as the mat­ter in which this mat­ter has un­fold­ed is deeply un­set­tling,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

“How­ev­er, as un­for­tu­nate as the cir­cum­stances may be, the law is pel­lu­cid,” he added.

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered the cou­ple to pay Se­u­nath $14,000 in le­gal costs.

Se­u­nath was rep­re­sent­ed by Yaseen Ahmed, Tara Lutch­man, and Shauntelle Lake. The cou­ple was rep­re­sent­ed by Reah Sookhai, and Sher­iza Khan-Heinz.