The London-based Privy Council has reiterated concerns that the Bahamas’ Quieting Titles Act can be used to steal land, saying it was “no accident” that it has heard numerous title disputes from this nation.
The highest court in the Bahamian judicial system flagged the issue in a December 2012 verdict on a title dispute involving more than 400 acres of land on Cat Island, a case whose participants included the wife of ex-Deputy Prime Minister, Brent Symonette.
Robin MacTaggart-Symonette became involved as the executrix of her mother, Sheila’s, estate. Sheila and her sister, Marion Lightbourn, had attempted on March 15, 1982, to obtain a Certificate of Title to two land parcels on Cat Island via the Quieting Titles Act, claiming ownership via the will of their father, Herbert McKinney, but were challenged by an adverse claimant, Frances Armbrister.
Mrs Armbrister’s claim was inherited by her two sons, Cyril and Anthony, the latter of whom runs a hotel in Cat Island’s Fernandez Bay. The two disputed areas were the southern part of the Freeman Hall estate, containing more than 400 acres, located at Warren’s Harbour on Cat Island’s east coast, and a separate 15-acre tract that was once part of the ‘Village Estate’.
After the initial Supreme Court trial in July 2006, then-Justice Jeanne Thompson found in favour of Mrs MacTaggart-Symonette and her aunt, granting them Certificates of Title for both land parcels. The Court of Appeal, though, partially reversed this, maintaining the ruling on Freeman Hall South but granting the Armbristers title to the 15-acre parcel.
Both Court of Appeal decisions were further appealed to the Privy Council. And it, too, reversed the previous verdict, awarding the Armbristers title certificates for both parcels of land, and throwing out the Quieting Titles Act petition.
In its ruling, the Privy Council said the rulings by the two lower courts on Freeman Hall South risked “a miscarriage of justice”, as neither had properly analysed the evidence before it.
