By AZARD ALI Friday, February 3 2012

AN interpretation of the local Land Tenant Act which protects tenants who, already using land for a single purpose, but wish to put it to other use, such as erecting a house, has been endorsed by the Privy Council.

In an important decision handed down yesterday, five law lords admitted that English planters once had a monopoly of the land market in Trinidad. Lord Walker dismissed the appeal of a wealthy land owner in Marabella, who sued for recovery of a parcel of land which housed the Marabella Presbyterian Church and a manse (living quarters) of the resident church minister.

Three law lords held the view that a fair interpretation of the Land Tenants (Security of Tenure Act) 1981, is to allow a tenant to have protection from being evicted, even if he or she builds a structure on land not originally tenanted from a landlord for that purpose.

In a ten-page document, Lords Hope, Walker, Brown, Wilson and Lady Hale, documented the social and economic hardships of emancipated slaves and indentured labourers, in securing land in Trinidad.

Lord Walker stated, “The planters had a near monopoly of the land market. The plantations were the only institutions capable of meeting the workers’ demand for accommodation. They were given houses and spots for which they rendered labour in part payment. But they were tenants at will. They could be evicted at short notice.” But Walker stated that as Trinidad and Tobago society developed, large numbers of citizens began to build concrete houses, with consent of their respective landlords. To protect persons living for years on tenanted land, the then government in 1981 passed the Land Tenants (Security of Tenure Act) 1981, to allow any tenant the first option to buy any tenanted land, after occupation for over 17 years. The Marabella Presbyterian Church had been renting 21,000 square feet of land next to Republic Bank, Marabella, since 1974, from David Gopaul on behalf of HV Holdings Ltd. The rent the church trustees paid to the Gopauls was 48 cents per year. But the church had been on the land before 1946, and in 1958, the manse was built next to it. The Gopauls are business people who own hardware and malls a stone’s throw away from the church.

On June 14, 2002, the Gopauls (landlord) served notice on the church trustees to quit by December, 2002. On April 23, 2004, the Gopauls filed an ejectment notice in the magistrates’ court, in which it contended that the primary purpose of its tenancy was for the church, with the manse being merely complementary.