Two?homeowners living at Upper Carters Gap, Christ Church, are pleading with officials of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to give them permission to repair their homes which have fallen into disrepair.
Dawn Floris and Charmaine Callender are two of five tenants who recently discovered that the land was owned by the church.
Floris, who has been living on the spot for over 15 years, said she bought her house from a woman but never knew who the landowner was.
“Nobody ever came to us to collect land rent or to let us know that they owned the land,” she explained.
Callender, whose family was one of the first to occupy the spot 20 years ago, recalled that her brother’s father passed down the land and house to him.
However in 2009, when Tropical Storm Tomas affected the houses Floris decided to seek out the owners of the land because she wanted to carry out urgent repairs to her home and she felt this was the right thing to do.
“I did my research and I?found out that a man had gifted this land to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I?went to the church shortly after the storm and spoke to Pastor David Beckles, the president of the church, and he told me that the church would pass on the land to us given that we were living here for all of these years but he advised me to speak to Pastor Dyal.
Floris said while Pastor Beckles was very sympathetic to their plight, Pastor Dyal kept telling them about the legal aspect of the land.
“He visited the area and could not even find where we lived. I?had to direct him and he even got lost. I?thought it was very funny that the church owned land and did not even know where it was. When he came I invited him to come inside and see the state of my house but he refused. He told me that their lawyers were looking into the matter.”
While the church has gone ahead and surveyed the land, Floris believes that the matter is taking too long to resolve.
“I?kept going to the church and calling them asking if we could go ahead and repair our homes but Pastor Dyal told me that their lawyer said nobody is to do anything to any of the houses.
“I?got really upset and had it with him and he told me to leave legal things to legal minds,” said Floris, who already has building material to rebuild her wooden home and has received permission from Town and Country Planning.
She said each time it rained the house was flooded with water.
For Callender it is even more urgent that she repairs her wooden home.
She said the flooring was rotten and the roof was leaking, requiring containers inside the house to catch the water whenever it rained.
She said the situation at the house was unbearable for her family which included her mother and children.
When contacted, Pastor Colin Thorne, who is in charge of the process, explained that the executive committee of the church was making arrangements to sell the land to the tenants. “This matter is in our lawyer’s hands. We got the land survey and we want to sell it to them but one tenant has not paid. We do not want to disadvantage anyone,” he said.
He added that the church was always aware that it owned the property but with the changing of executives over the years this was somehow “lost in translation”.
“We have discovered that the tenantry act has to be applied here. Our lawyer is trying to make sure that everything is in order before we do anything. I?would advise them to relax,” Thorne said.
I also consulted with an attorney who explained that had the tenants not sought out the owner of the land they could have applied to the court for a title suit as the presumed owners, given that over the years no one had come forward to claim ownership.
“Now that they have identified an owner that precludes them from doing that,” the lawyer said.
However, he said that the church must sell the land to the five tenants, not at market value but at a reasonable price.