Legal showdown between Juliet Holness’ company,Charlene Ashley delayed to October
Published:Saturday | June 22, 2024 | 4:21 AMJovan Johnson/Senior Staff Reporter -
The continuation of the legal fight between a company owned by businesswoman and lawmaker Juliet Holness and marketing consultant Charlene Ashley has been pushed back to October.
The trial, which started in May 2023, was set to continue in the Supreme Court on Thursday and Friday. It was previously adjourned in January.
However, at the start of Thursday's hearing, Rose Bennett-Cooper, the attorney for the company JAJ Development and Holdings Limited, told the court that she was not well.
The parties later agreed for the trial to continue on October 14-17.
Justice David Batts is presiding over the case.
Bennett-Cooper and Sidia Smith, from Bennett Cooper Smith, represent JAJ while John Clarke and Andre Moulton, instructed by Knight, Junor & Samuels, appeared for Ashley.
Holness, a member of parliament, speaker of the House of Representatives and wife of the prime minister, and Ashley were present in court.
Health challenges with Ashley have also delayed the case.
JAJ sued Ashley in 2020 to obtain the splintered title for the land on which its incomplete $800-million apartment complex is located in Leas Flat, St Andrew.
The company bought a piece of the property on which Ashley lives in 2012 for $22 million.
Ashley's portion is Lot One while JAJ's is Lot Two. Ashley is to get an apartment as part payment.
A condition of the sales agreement was for Ashley to deliver a splintered title, which was requested weeks after the transaction in October 2012.
Ashley claims she could not produce the title because of problems with the subdivision and the company's alleged failure to turn over drawings of the development. She said the drawings were provided in 2020. The subdivision would force the removal of her present gateway.
Ashley provided a title in December 2022 but Holness said it does not comply with the sales agreement because the width of the access road that straddles the two lots five metres short of the eight metres allegedly agreed. She also said the width was below the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation's minimum requirement of 6.2 metres.
Bennett-Cooper has accused Ashley of trying to steal some of the land for the access road, a claim Ashley has rejected.
Although the drawing on the agreement includes a reserve road for the development, Ashley claimed in court that Holness intended to use land acquired from a neighbour to create the access road for the apartment complex.
But Holness hit back, saying she sought to use the access road that came with her lot after building out on the other piece of land she bought.
Ashley has also countersued JAJ, accusing it of trespassing on her lot and breaching the sales agreement by destroying concrete structures, including a border wall, to build the access road to the apartment complex.
Holness has denied the accusations.
EXPERT WITNESS FOR DEFENDANT TO BE CROSS-EXAMINED
The trial was expected to resume on Thursday with JAJ's attorney cross-examining commissioned land surveyor Timothy Thwaites. He was engaged by Ashley’s defence team in October 2022 to produce an expert report.
Thwaites said the survey was done on November 4, 2022, and his report dated November 10, 2022, is "guided by the facts and evidence identified on ground".
Among the findings is that excavation on the ground for JAJ's development "does extend into... Lot 1 (Ashley's property)". In addition, it said some of the parking spaces and an area designated for "landscape" were on Ashley's lot.
According to the survey report, Ashley’s property, "appeared to be included in the approved KSAMC drawings" for JAJ's development.
Thwaites concluded that based on the approved plan for the 2.6-acre lot, the number of habitable rooms for the complex is 96. But he said at the rate of 30 habitable rooms per acre, "the
allowable number of habitable rooms would have been expected to be 78".
He also noted that a disputed concrete wall "does enclose a portion of the reserve road" and further that a doghouse, which Ashley claims was destroyed by JAJ, "appears to have been erected partially within the boundaries of the reserved road, straddling its common boundary with [Ashley's lot]".
Holness has admitted in the trial that she updated the drawings after realising in 2013 that they included Ashley’s lot, which allowed for more habitable rooms than would have been permitted if Ashley’s lot was not included. She said the changes were approved in June 2021.
She has also told the court that parish authorities insist that the main site plan for the complex has to show both lots until there are separate titles.
But Thwaites concluded that "material amount of information were available at the time of the preparation of the building plans to guide as to the agreed and expected boundary between the lands for the development" and Ashley's land.
While elaborating on the report's findings on January 31, the surveyor said the sales agreement did not specify the form that the easement was to take.
But he said an eight metre road could not be accommodated for JAJ's property without causing alterations to Ashley's lot and its present gateway.
JAJ's attorney, Bennett-Cooper, only asked Thwaites one question before the matter was adjourned in January and that was whether he knew the legal definition of an easement.
"I do," he replied.
His cross-examination is to continue in October.