The Bahamas has a long history of real estate scams and land grabbing lawyers. ﾠOver the years, especially since Independence, many Bahamian lawyers and real estate agents have vastly enriched themselves working shady land deals throughout the islands. But the tricks and tactics that these land grabbers have used in the past may not work anymore.
There was a time when a developer and a real estate agent could hire a crafty lawyer, pull some tricks with the title, with the help of a crooked title company, and presto, millions of dollars in profit could be made from land none of them paid a penny for.
Sometimes, the crooks would have someone occupy land or a building illegally, then have a crooked lawyer protest the rogue tenants’ eviction, tying up the property in court for years, while the owner was unable to collect rent or sell the property, with the deadbeat tenant getting free rent the whole time. It was win-win for the crooks and their lawyer, but a no-win situation for the legal property owner.
Another tactic was to sell the land to several different people, giving each person what they thought was a valid title. Only when someone tried to sell the land, often years later, was a problem with the title brought to light. Then the crooked lawyers would come in and “complicate” things for everyone but their clients, who usually had no legal claim to the land anyway.
Foreign land owners were threatened with deportation if they dared to fight the legal mafia and poor Bahamians were simply run over by a legal steamroller they were ill-financed to fight.
Dozens of prominent Bahamian families got wealthy using these unscrupulous tactics, quieting titles in an immoral, if not entirely illegal, manner and then selling the land they never owned to their cronies, or to unwitting buyers. ﾠOne Bahamian old-timer estimates that there are very few wealthy Bahamian families that have a clean conscience in this regard. ﾠExcept, of course, for the families that gained their wealth through drug dealing or unethical political advantages.
Thousands of poor black Bahamians, widows of Bahamian men, and foreigners, lost their land or gave up the fight for it, after years of frustrating court battles. Cases were often improperly manipulated by corrupt attorneys, many of whom are still members of a loosely knit organised crime group otherwise known as the “Bahamian mafia”, a group that still exercises considerable control over the judiciary and courts in this country.
Now, with the open communications provided by the Internet and a growing population of intelligent young Bahamians, not willing to accept the status quo, the tactics used by these land scammers are becoming easier to spot and are receiving more scrutiny. Thus, the Web is full of Bahamas real estate horror stories and tales of foreigners who have lost their land to due to crooked Bahamas real estate agents and manipulation of the legal process by unscrupulous Bahamian attorneys.
The most recent land dispute, centered around property in Bozine Town, may expose more of the corrupt dealings that have allowed land grabbers to be so successful over the years. Some say it may be the beginning of the end of this corrupt activity. But that is unlikely seeing as many of our politicians, including MPs and Senators, even Cabinet members, are the very people who have benefited from land scams in the past. And the legal mafia has no intention of ceding control of the courts to honest Bahamians anytime soon.
