Hundreds of residents in Sir Lynden Pindling Estates are living on property that does not belong to them, Arawak Homes President Franon Wilson said yesterday.
Wilson's statement followed a July 29 Privy Council ruling that upheld a Court of Appeal judgment, which affirmed Arawak Homes' ownership of the property.
He appealed to the residents to speak with Arawak Homes, which owns 1,700 lots in the area, to help regularize their property titles.
The company will give homeowners 12 months to come in and regularize their titles, he said.
"Anyone who fails to take advantage of that opportunity during that time, then we will have no course than to go our legal route," Wilson said.
He said hundreds of homeowners in Sir Lynden Pindling Estates purchased land belonging to Arawak Homes from someone else.
The Privy Council ruling is the culmination of a 12-year legal battle between Dennis Dean and his wife and Arawak Homes over the property, which the Deans believed they had acquired in 1998 from a company called Bahamas Variety Company (1989) Limited (BVC).
BVC purported to have obtained title from Thaddeus Johnson in 1992 via his widow, Mergil Chisholm Johnson.
"Mr. and Mrs Dean sought to argue that they had a possessory title to the disputed land by virtue of a combination of their occupation since 1998 and 1999 and the prior occupation of their predecessors in title, Mr. Johnson and BVC, amounting to adverse possession for more than 12 years," the ruling said.
But the Privy Council said there was no evidence of possession of the land by Johnson or BVC.
Wilson said Arawak Homes had been dealing with such disputes in the area from as far back as 1985.
He said Tuesday's ruling was the first step in bringing the issue to a close.
"When you drive along the Charles Saunders Highway, when you look left and right, the overwhelming majority of that property belongs to Arawak Homes," said Wilson at a press conference.
"A lot of people who live on the highway would have purchased property from Arawak Homes; some didn't. Those people that didn't, the fact of the matter is they have homes there.
"The reality is today that, that property belongs to Arawak Homes. They cannot pass that on to their children."
He said the company has already worked out agreements with more than 100 people in the area who had already purchased and built homes on property belonging to Arawak Homes.
The ruling noted that in 2008 Arawak Homes sought an injunction to remove the buildings on the disputed property that the Deans purported to own.
Wilson said the company tried on several occasions to settle the matter out of court with the Deans. The matter began in 2002.
"The fact is Dennis Dean had two duplexes and a 14-plex, all of which now belong to Arawak Homes," he said.
"We didn't want it. Any step along the way, please come and let us deal with this matter. We don't want to go to court."
Sir Lynden Pindling Estates, formerly Pinewood Gardens Phase II, encompasses land east of Buttonwood Avenue, south of Sequoia Street and extends east just before Beatrice Avenue.

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