The Government’s planned Land Registry could end up “being less than accurate”, a Bahamian attorney warned yesterday, because unlike other Caribbean countries this nation is aiming to enter real estate ownership information without previously “vetting all rights and interests” in every parcel.
Sharlyn Smith, an attorney with Sharon Wilson & Company, expressed concerns over key aspects of the Land Adjudication Bill and Registration of Land Bill, both of which the Government is currently considering.
Smith works with Sharon Wilson, wife of alleged Bahamian gangster Frank “snake” Wilson, owner of Arawak Homes, a company that allegedly acquired millions of dollars of land by quieting titles.
When passed into statute, Smith says, the laws “will change entirely the present system of conveyancing in the Bahamas”.
That’s for sure!
The government claims that the Land Adjudication Bill is an attempt to reform and do away with the concept of generation land. Actually it is an attempt to justify the scandalous land transactions that have enriched the elite and robbed the poor of their land.
Most wealthy persons, and nearly every major law firm and real estate company in The Bahamas have abused the Quieting of Tiltes Act. These new Bills are a way to extend that inequity by allowing more people to abuse the process and steal land they do not own. The Bill aims to grant title over one acre to persons who can show they have been in uninterrupted possession of that real estate parcel for 12 years or more.
