Latest update April 7th, 2025 6:08 AM
Battle looms over repossession of Govt.’s core homes
A move by Government to repossess a number of turnkey homes that were issued under a special
PPP Parliamentarian, Anil Nandlall
housing programme will be meeting resistance.
On Wednesday, former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, warned that measures by Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) to take back house lots and the Core Houses from applicants on the grounds on non-occupancy would be illegal.
Nandlall, a lawyer, explained that it is now public knowledge that the housing authority has made a decision to repossess properties from persons who were allocated a house and lot under the programme that had been launched by the Peoples’ Progressive Party/Civil (PPP/C) Government.
“I call on all the beneficiaries of this programme not to submit to the authoritarianism and unlawful actions of the CH&PA. I urge that they seek legal advice and representation,” the PPP parliamentarian urged.
Nandlall said that some of the allottees have consulted him.
“…And I wrote to the CH&PA informing them that these persons contend that they are in possession of their properties; they cannot lawfully repossess these properties on the ground of non-occupation. I made the matter public. I thought that the CH&PA would have abandoned this flagrant unconstitutional pursuit of expropriation of private property.”
Nandlall claimed that it has now been drawn to his attention that the CH&PA recently resorted to threats, intimidation, artifice, trickery and deceit in getting persons to hand over to them their Agreements of Sale, Certificates of Title, keys to their premises and inducing them to sign certain documents, without any independent legal advice and without explaining to them the nature, purport and effect of those documents.
“This entire course of action on the part of the CH&PA is unlawful and constitutes an abrogation of the protection, which the Constitution accords to the citizenry against the compulsory acquisition of their private property by the State.”
The PPP official argued that the legal truth is that a Certificate of Title confers upon its holder absolute ownership of the property to which it relates subject only to registered encumbrances.
“A person can only lawfully lose his Certificate of Title if it is established to the satisfaction of a Court of competent jurisdiction that he acquired same fraudulently. Certainly, a person cannot lose his property on the ground of non-occupancy. “
Under the Core Homes project, applicants are asked to pay for the land and to contribute $100,000 towards the construction of the core house”.
“These persons did so and Certificates of Title were issued to them for these properties. Prior to the issue of the title, these persons entered into an Agreement of Sale with the CH & PA,” Nandlall said.
The agreement of sale contained a number of terms and conditions. It warned that the beneficiary has to give up the property if they fail to occupy it within one month of delivery.
Nandlall said that on November 17, 2015, the CH&PA issued letters to a number of the beneficiaries of the programme informing them that they are in breach of obligations.
CH&PA asked the recipients to collect a refund by submitting originals of all documents pertaining to the transaction.
The administration has been complaining of a number of problems in the housing sector which has in recent years become a big driver of the economy.
The authority has over 25,000 applications for homes and house lots on file, but with little lands available in the Demerara area.
Scores of house lots have remained occupied with many of the owners migrating. The lands have been posing a problem in the numerous new housing schemes around the country with overgrown bushes and the very real security issues that comes with it.
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