Tobago man praises Legal Aid in property dispute

THE COURT of Appeal has reversed an order of the High Court which prevented a diabetic amputee from Tobago from staying on part of his late stepmother’s property near Store Bay.

Sean Moses was full of praise for the Legal Aid and Advisory Authority (LAAA) and the attorneys who worked on his appeal, without whom, he said, he would have nowhere to live.

Justices of Appeal Maria Wilson, Ronnie Boodoosingh and Geoffrey Henderson last week dismissed an injunction which prevented Moses from entering or remaining on the Bon Accord property as they allowed his appeal in part.

The Appeal Court also held Moses was a valid beneficiary of his stepmother’s will and had an interest in a larger parcel of the almost one-acre piece of land. The court also held Moses was entitled to enter the property.

In their ruling, the Appeal Court judges also varied a previous cost order for $14,000 against him.

Moses is the executor of his stepmother’s will, which named him and other relatives as beneficiaries of her estate, which included approximately an acre of land near Store Bay.

In July 2019, Justice Kevin Ramcharan ruled that the will had been tampered with after it was executed by crossing out certain beneficiaries.

Ramcharan upheld the original will and ordered that only those beneficiaries in the original document would be valid.

Moses was one of those valid beneficiaries and was not found to have engaged in tampering with his stepmother’s will.

However, Ramcharan imposed an injunction against him.

Moses said not only was he one of the named executors of the will and a beneficiary of the land, but also had a small wooden house there, where he lived.

In the matter before the High Court, he was ordered to pay costs in his capacity as executor of his stepmother’s estate and his personal capacity.

“I knew right away something went wrong.”

Moses told Newsday he wanted to appeal, but since he could not afford litigation, he sought the assistance of the LAAA. Asha Watkins-Montserin and Javier Forrester represented him free of charge at the Court of Appeal, he said.

“I thank the Legal Aid and Advisory Authority because without them I would have been without a home. I am living on disability benefits and I am partially blind.”

In their ruling, the Appeal Court also declared two other relatives had an equitable life interest in the house left to them by Moses’ stepmother on one lot of land on the property.