A man who has had his land trespassed upon by the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) for 16 years disagreed yesterday with a ruling by the Court of Appeal, which ordered BEC to pay him $540,255 in profits and damages and ordered a conveyance of the land to the corporation yesterday, and he promised to appeal to the Privy Council.
Joshua Haeward, owner of Delta Properties Ltd., which owns over 16 acres of land between Windsor Road and West Bay Street, said that a decision by the Court of Appeal to order that the land belonging to him, which was trespassed upon by BEC for the purposes of installing utility poles in 1998, be conveyed to the corporation also now effectively "landlocked" the remaining property where he had hoped to develop a 75-lot subdivision.
Haeward had gone to the Court of Appeal to overturn a decision of the Chief Justice in November 2012 that had determined, amongst other things, that an award of damages to him for BEC's "continuing trespass" on his land near the airport should be based on the compensation he would have been entitled to had his land been "compulsorily acquired" under the relevant statutes in 1998.
While the Court of Appeal expanded the financial value of the award that would be made to Haeward to include so-called "mesne" profits - a form of damages common in land disputes, which involve the person who has had their land encroached upon by a profit-making entity receiving a portion of the profits made by the illegal tenant in the interim - and added that interest on the sum would run at seven percent per annum from the date of judgment until payment by BEC to Haeward. The judgment also went further to suggest that the 1.197 acres property upon which BEC had constructed its utility poles should be conveyed to BEC with costs borne by the corporation.
Haeward said he disagreed with this assessment and the value of the mesne profits and damages awarded, suggesting that a portion of the profits made by BEC from running power cables across his land would have far exceeded the $151,468 suggested by the court.
BEC began its encroachment on Haeward's land in 1998, placing utility poles which ran power cables across the land without his permission; proceedings were initiated against the corporation in 2007.
According to the original ruling by the Chief Justice in the matter, BEC had originally claimed that it had "an easement which permitted the erection of the poles and the power lines across the property, but that claim was abandoned and (BEC) conceded the acts of trespass."
The Court of Appeal noted that an appraisal made in 2007, when the proceedings against BEC were initiated, found the total value of the 16.34 acres to be $4 million. Based on that figure, the 1.197 acres of which the power lines hang would be $299,067.
In an interview with Guardian Business after the court's ruling yesterday, Haeward said that he would take the court matter to "the next level" by seeking to appeal to the Privy Council in London.
"They went on the land without my consent. If I conveyed this land to them, that would give me a difficulty in accessing the rest of my land, because it would be blocking the road. So they would be inhibiting me making the kind of development that I want to do with it.
"I also wanted a portion of the income they made from passing through my property. I estimated they would have made over a billion by passing through my property, and I would've settled for $144 million.
"It makes a mockery of private property rights. What's the point of me having land if they can just walk onto it and use it?" said Haeward.
Haeward also expressed concern that the ongoing efforts to bring in private entities to become involved in the operations of BEC may impede his chances of seeing a payout in relation to the dispute, as more interests become involved.

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