Rum Cay Bahamas - Plans for a $12 million Rum Cay marina centered around neighboring Sumner Point land may have washed away with the economy, with the owners of the land now seeking to reacquire that land from the development company ? citing defaults on the purchasing agreement.

To call off the deal, principal owner of the 50-plus acre property Robert Little Sr. is prepared to take the matter all the way to the Supreme Court. Legal representatives for the Little family have already briefed the Prime Minister's Office of their intentions, Guardian Business has learned.

"It was envisioned the deal would close within six months subject to government approval. . . it does not appear that the deal will close now or ever," said a statement from Little obtained by Guardian Business. "We have been left with defaulted agreements and a marina that has been neglected and pillaged.

"The deal has not closed [and] we want our marina back."

They are statements centered around an agreement made by the two parties just over two years ago to acquire the adjoining Sumner Point property, with its marina, from the Little family for a price upwards of $10 million.

This latest development follows assurances by John Mittens of Montana Holdings Limited (MHL), the development company behind the Rum Cay Resorts project, in a recent article said that plans still stood for a second home component around the existing marina on the Sumner Point land now in dispute.

A failure to secure that property could mean any plans for the key second-home component are now all down the drain, even after an uptick in the economy.

Little insists, however, that all possible avenues have been exhausted with MHL, pointing at the price of the marina having changed several times since the start of negotiations.

"It seems the tactic was to negotiate a lower price with a defined closing date, the default," alleged Little. "The lower price then became the new purchase price in spite of the fact that the deal did not materialize.

"We went through this process twice in 2007 and 2008, reducing the purchase price almost 40 percent."

Little asserts all attempts to evict Montana Holdings from their site, which it has been managing since the start of the deal between the two parties, have been ignored.

"MHL has declared via their attorney that they will only leave via Supreme Court order," he added.

In a Guardian Business article last week the developer asserted the deal had been closed - at the same time acknowledging that there are still additional payments to be made to acquire the land.

In fact, he said plans to develop the Sumner Point land had been timed for the upturn in the economy, asserting that interest in the overall project in terms of investors and buyers had picked up in recent weeks.

"We've got joint venture partners who want to just undertake certain areas of the development," he said then. "I personally have seen markets changing quite well in recent weeks.

"We are getting more phone calls from people who are expressing (an) interest in investing and we're getting modest inquires from people interested in land plots and asking about opportunities to buy a home."

By Inderia Saunders, nassau guardian