Dear Editor,
Thank you for printing this letter, which I hope comes to the attention of the Attorney General and Allyson Maynard-Gibson and Leslie Miller, Ministers with responsibility for Financial Services/Investments and Trade/Industry, respectively.
The Quieting Titles Act, The International Persons Landholding Act and the Limitation Act in The Bahamas are, as you may know, very controversial Acts since together they essentially allow any person, Bahamian or not, who is otherwise trespassing to dispossess the rightful owner provided he can prove to the court that he has been on the land for twelve years to the detriment of the true owner.
Where the Quieting involves only Bahamians, there is really no public dilemma for the government since all rights to the land remain in The Bahamas or in Bahamians and permanent residents. Where a foreign person or company is involved however, there is a very grave danger that Bahamians will be driven off their own lands and then be made to watch as their children rent the very same properties (then developed) from the foreign investors who turned the parents out.
The problem persists because of the poor registration system. The land is not registered; the title is, usually. But in many cases the title is so convoluted that all one can say is it is generation property and that it will take a lawyer to figure it out. There are persons who might be able to help themselves by conducting their own title searches, but with only one working search machine at the Registrar General’s office in Freeport and the majority down in Nassau, it’s next to impossible.
Further, lawyers are discouraged from working on a contingency basis and, therefore, their clients have to come up front with legal fees. The end result is that if you cannot afford an attorney, you basically cannot prove your claim in the Quieting action. Many Bahamians, especially on the (Family Islands) have lots of generation property but little money. Consequently their claims go unheard.
Now one would think that if the government was allowing this situation to continue, then it was because the government was deriving some benefit from it. The truth is that the only persons who benefit from a quieting action are the lawyers, who receive their fees, and the person who receives the title. The government gets just what the owner gets for the land itself: nothing.
At a time when oil and natural gas are becoming more and more valuable, it appears as though this government is satisfied to sit idly by and watch as foreign companies and the like take entire ‘towns’ without a penny being paid, either to the Bahamian owner or the government of The Bahamas. Is this government prepared to suffer the indignity of having to pay foreign individuals for property they quieted when it is discovered that the property is rich in natural gas or other valuable deposits?
If allowed to remain on the books in its present form, the Quieting Titles Act will surely turn many Bahamians into a poorer group of people. While this government may point to Mr. Ingraham’s removal of some of the restraints on foreign ownership of land as a cause for this situation, Mr. Christie and his cabinet are no better if they happily reside over it.
Hebrews 12:17 tells us that Esau was adjudged a profane person when he sold his birthright. In the end when he sought a place of refuge he could find none even though he sought it with tears. Surely we will be judged more harshly than Esau. He received a reward for his inheritance. We are receiving nothing. Perhaps it won’t be just us who find no place of refuge in The Bahamas; perhaps it will be our children as well.
Now this letter is not based on some half-imagined fear. An application has been made by a foreign company in Grand Bahama to Quiet 200 acres of land on that Island. It’s possible that little or nothing was paid for this property and that Bahamians will not be able to afford it. Perhaps it is too late to protect the rights of The Bahamians involved there, but surely the government will move quickly to ensure that such an application cannot be repeated. Its future as well as ours could depend on it.
Sincerely,
Concerned in Grand Bahama
