APPLICATION FOR POSSESSORY TITLE

Vol. 1, No.2

In a previous article, we looked at Grenada’s Possessory Titles Act. We looked at situations in which the Act applies. In this article we will looked at the process for obtaining a certificate of possessory title which is the equivalent of a proper deed.

A bid to obtain a certificate of possessory title under Grenada Possessory Titles Act commences with an application to the court. The application must be accompanied by a plan describing the land and a notice to be signed by the Registrar. The notice would contain information to the public about your application, giving a description of the land you are claiming in terms of boundaries.

In addition to the application, plan and notice, you must file an affidavit. In the affidavit you must state the facts upon which you base your claim for the certificate of possessory title. You must also file two affidavits from independent persons stating that they have known you to be in open, exclusive and undisturbed possession of the land for 12 years or more. Affidavit evidence is required because an affidavit is made on oath. It is an offence to lie under oath. It is an offence under the Possessory Titles Act for anyone to make a false affidavit to obtain possessory title or to assist another person to obtain possessory title. The offence under the Act is punishable by a fine of $10,000.00 or two years imprisonment or by both fine and imprisonment. The reason for this heavy fine and imprisonment is to deter persons from fraudulently seeking to obtain title.

Publication of application

After you file the applicationand it is endorsed by the Registrar, the Registrar would sign the notice referred to above and return it to you or your lawyer. You must publish the notice in the Gazette. You must also serve the notice on adjoining landowners.This must be done within 21 days of the Registrar returning the notice to you. You must also stick up the notice on the notice board in in the district court. The notice must also be published on two occasions in two local newspapers. After the first publication, at least 2 months must pass before the second publication.

Objections

Once the notice of your application is published, any person who wants to object to your application can file a notice of objection in court. There is a window of up to two months after the publication of your second notice in the newspaper for objections to be filed. Anyone filing a notice of objection must, within 21 days, file a claim setting out the facts upon which they oppose your application.

Certificate of non-objection

You can make a request for a certificate of non-objection. You can do this where no objection,or no claim opposing your application, is filed against your application after the expiration of two months since the second publication in the newspaper.

If there is an objection and a claim is filed opposing your application, then the matter must be tried by the court to determine whether to grant or refuse your application. If there is a trial the losing side has a right to appeal. An appeal must be filed within three months of the decision of the court.

After the Court grants the certificate, the Registrar must within one month publish the decision of the court in the Gazette and in at least one local newspaper.

Fraud

Despite the punishment that can be meted out for fraud, some persons may still seek to fraudulently obtain title by filing applications supported by false affidavits. If they get through and obtain title, that title could be set aside by the Court once the fraud is exposed.

However, if after obtaining the possessory title and before the fraud is exposed, the fraudster sells the property to an honest purchaser who does not have knowledge of the fraud, that honest purchaser would obtain good title and you would lose your land.

This article is for general information purposes only. Its contents do not constitute legal advice. Before you act on any matter in this article, seek advice from an attorney-at-law.

Joseph Ewart Layne is the CEO of JEL Professional Solutions. He is a graduate of Hugh Wooding Law School, holding the LEC with Merit; he holds a LLB (Honours) and a LLM (with Merit) (Corporate & Commercial Law) from London University and a LLM (Legislative Drafting) from UWI, St. Augustine. He also holds a BSc. (First Class Honours) in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University and is an ACCA Affiliate.