LAND BATTLE

The Supreme Court has issued an injunction against a real estate developer and has ordered the National Land Agency (NLA) to explain how a parcel of land slated for a multimillion-dollar apartment complex has two conflicting titles reflected on its system.

The court action last week is the latest turn in a land dispute, which The Sunday Gleaner has been tracking for a month.

The situation could have far-reaching implications for the state entity, the developer, and the elusive attorney(s) involved in the questionable transfer of the 24 Oakridge Road property in St Andrew.

It is a small win for the children of Jennrine Bodden, a deceased woman listed in NLA’s database as the decades-long owner of the property. They turned up at the long-vacant lot last month only to find workmen contracted by Universal Weld Limited destroying their mother’s former home. The woman died in 2013.

“The judge allowed me to recover possession of the property with immediate effect, and also to see the document at the Titles Office that was used to create the [new] title,” disclosed Tamara Riley-Dunn, the attorney representing the woman’s distressed adult children living overseas.

“I thought these days at the Titles Office were long gone. I thought a purging was being done there to fire a lot of workers, and to change things that were happening for many years. This is the first case like this that I’ve seen in a very long time,” she added.

“The fact that you have two titles for one property at the Office of Titles and that the parties received this second title, reveals ... that something is going on there,” she charged, noting that she is awaiting the soonest provision of the documents from the NLA.

The attorney strongly believes that the second document issued on October 31, 2021, in the name of one Feddel George Sibblies – the individual from whom Andrew Marriott, registered director of Universal Weld Limited, said he purchased the property – is fraudulent.

The Companies Office of Jamaica lists Universal Weld Limited as a used car dealership incorporated in 2013, and the second title denotes Sibblies as a dental technician. However, government records identified Sibblies as a farmer.

The Sunday Gleaner visited Sibblies’ listed address on Maynard Avenue in St Andrew two weeks ago. No one was at home at the time, but a neighbour said that they had never heard of that name. The neighbour, instead, identified a man who lives alone at the premises as ‘Kirk’, and aided this reporter with a telephone call to him.

On that call, Kirk explained that the address was indeed that of Mr Sibblies, to whom he was very close. Sibblies, however, died on July 22, 2014, he said – five months prior to the start date of a sales agreement brandished by Marriott as proof of purchase.

Ironically, Kirk said he knew Marriott personally, and that he knew of the controversial Oakridge property. Kirk said that he, too, was a developer.

Even more bizarre, Riley-Dunn said a middle-aged gentleman, who identified himself as Sibblies, collected court documents delivered at the Maynard Avenue address. That person never turned up to the Supreme Court last Monday.

Last week, representatives at the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) could not locate a death certificate for Feddel George Sibblies. There was, however, a date of birth: March 3, 1939, which means Sibblies would currently be 84 years old.

“None of the details you gave match any records in our death database. If he is, indeed, dead, the death has not been registered,” an RGD representative explained to The Sunday Gleaner.

NLA head points to possible ‘human error’

Cheriese Walcott, CEO and commissioner of lands at the NLA, was slow to accept the possibility that fraud could be taking place at the state entity under her watch.

She attributed the tale of the two titles to human error.

“Both titles were issued. I don’t know how they were issued, but clearly, that is something that the courts must look at,” she said, adding that such happenings are infrequent as she pushed back at allegations of misconduct.

“Malfeasance means there is some active role here, and that is not the case. As with any office, human errors happen, and so I’m not prepared to go that route unless a court of law, looking at the facts, says that there is something,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

“Right now, we are looking at whether there was an error on our side and what can be put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Walcott continued.

“Either one title was issued in error or what was sent to substantiate one of the applications had some misdescription of the property. At NLA, we cannot determine ownership, only the courts can look at both facts and then advise us which of the two titles should stand,” she maintained.

The Sunday Gleaner secured copies of both titles and a caveat card on the second title lodged by the Registrar of Titles in April 2022 to “prevent improper dealings” further to Section 15(c) of the Registration of Titles Act. This means, no transaction involving the second title can be made until the registrar is appeased.

Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) records still list Bodden as the owner of the land and reflected property tax payments of more than $800,000 in property taxes paid between 2017 and 2023, which her children said they have honoured.

The first title had details of transfers of the land over many years, ending with Bodden. It, however, made no mention of Sibblies – although Sibblies’ title cites the first as the parent title.

Two weeks ago, Marriott told The Sunday Gleaner that he had purchased the property for more than $20 million, excluding the requisite fees; and presented a stamped copy of the second title and a sales agreement between himself and Sibblies as proof of the transaction.

He indicated that all transactions were handled by his lawyer, whose name he declined to provide. He admitted that no title has yet been transferred into his name, yet, unabated, he continued his preparation for the apartment complex.

“About three different sets of people have come here. In all, about seven of them came, saying they own the property. One set said they came from a church and that the lady willed it to them,” charged Marriott.

“But if someone willed you a property, why are you coming now making a claim when the property was advertised in the paper? We paid for it and everything,” he reasoned.

“If your father or mother died for how many years, why up to now you have not done the administration or looked about the title?” he continued, explaining that it was his lawyer who identified the property, and soon after, money changed hands via the said attorney.

Marriott claimed that he has never met Sibblies nor Sibblies’ attorney.

“I would like to know who is the attorney who assisted this person to do these things,” charged Riley-Dunn. “Wherever he (Marriott) paid that money, he needs to go back for it.”

“There is no evidence on what grounds a title would have been issued to Feddel,” added a Sunday Gleaner source close to the NLA. “The lawyers involved must have realised that discrepancy ... .”

Presented with documents outlining the matter, Alexander Williams, former president of the Jamaican Bar Association, was also curious about the attorney(s) involved in the matter, stressing that the burden of responsibility vested in attorneys, especially in property sale matters.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com