Cedros land deal causes lawsuit

A HIGH Court judge has permitted two prospective landowners to represent at least 66 other people who say they were conned by a real estate agent and a contracting company of millions of dollars for parcels of land in Cedros.

Justice Ricky Rahim yesterday gave permission to Fitzroy Williams and Neil Bishop so that they can file a claim against the agent, Glenn Thomas, and the contracting company, Mass Contracting Ltd, and the owner of the land, Joseph Dhanoosingh.

The group is represented by Senior Counsel Gilbert Peterson and attorney Josiah Soo Hon and in their application they say in April 2016, they responded to a newspaper advertisement for the sale of land in Cedros.

They contacted the agent and all 68 of them paid various sums, amounting to more than $7 million. Some of them made down payments and others paid the full price for the land. They were shown the development plan for the lands as well as Town and Country approvals before making their payments.

They said when they attempted to contact the agent and the landowner to complete the sale, they were only given a photocopy of their deed of conveyance.

To date, none of them have received their deeds or their lots of land.

They intend to file a breach-of-contract claim against the agent, the company and the land’s owner now that Williams and Bishop have the court’s permission to represent all the people who lost their money in the land deal.