Lisa
01-15-03, - 12:50 PM
My sisters and I own a building on Mackey Street. This building has been in our family for about 40 years. In 1999 our mother died and left me as trustee of the estate. We have had nothing but trouble since. There was a tenant in the building who hadn’t paid rent in almost a year. When I took over, the man refused to pay his rent, attacked me with a cutlass and violated numerous other conditions of his lease. I took him to court and after numerous delays and legal shenanigans by the tenant, he was evicted.
He was out of the building for over three months and we moved on with our lives, trying to sell the property. Then one night the former tenant broke into the building and was caught red-handed inside the building with three other men, one of whom was an off-duty police officer friend of his. The police who arrived on the scene were friends of the off-duty cop so they didn’t arrest anyone.
The next day I was presented with papers stating that the rogue tenant was appealing the eviction from three months earlier. The legal window for an appeal had expired and the man was not even required to post the necessary appeal bond. He had also managed to obtain a court injunction prohibiting me from doing anything to thwart his moving back into the building. This injunction was signed ex parte’, which means that it was argued privately, in front of one judge, and I was not even notified of the court appearance, let alone allowed to protest the obvious injustice of the injunction. The injunction was also presented to the judge without full and frank disclosure on the part of the presenting attorney, whose unscrupulous method of presenting the motion was reason enough to have had it dismissed. The attorney blatantly lied to the judge telling him the tenant was still in the building and I just “locked him out one day” – she never mentioned that he had been properly and legally evicted in court three months earlier and no longer had any right to access the property. This injunction was a direct violation of my civil rights and my rights as a Bahamian property owner.
I requested an opportunity in court to oppose the injunction. The judge who signed the injunction was outraged that he had been lied to by the unscrupulous attorney representing the tenant. The judge said he was tricked into signing an injunction with incorrect and insufficient information. Because he was too upset and didn’t want to make a “snap decision,” he adjourned the case for several days saying he would make his judgement at that time. Yet, two days later, he did not overturn the injunction and wouldn’t even make eye contact with my attorney and I as he quietly delivered the news that he was not going to overturn it. It was later confirmed that he had indeed been “compromised.” Over a year later the rogue tenant is still in the building, not paying a bit of rent. The case has “disappeared” in the chaotic legal system of the Bahamas. At this time there is still no appeal date in sight. I cannot sell the property, cannot rent the property and cannot get the due rent from this rogue tenant.
This is just one small stomach churning twist in a roller-coaster of injustice and lawlessness. I have been in and out of court on a continual basis, causing tremendous loss of productivity in my work. I have written letters to the newspapers, spoken to numerous lawyers, judges, the Bar Association, the Attorney General, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and even the Prime Minister’s office. Yet no one has even taken the time to investigate the incredibly unjust situation. I have been told by three different prominent attorneys that “justice doesn’t exist in the Bahamas.”
I believe those attorneys are correct and it will be the straw that breaks the back of the Bahamian society and economy.
Lisa Wells
www.bahamasb2b.com (http://www.bahamasb2b.com)
He was out of the building for over three months and we moved on with our lives, trying to sell the property. Then one night the former tenant broke into the building and was caught red-handed inside the building with three other men, one of whom was an off-duty police officer friend of his. The police who arrived on the scene were friends of the off-duty cop so they didn’t arrest anyone.
The next day I was presented with papers stating that the rogue tenant was appealing the eviction from three months earlier. The legal window for an appeal had expired and the man was not even required to post the necessary appeal bond. He had also managed to obtain a court injunction prohibiting me from doing anything to thwart his moving back into the building. This injunction was signed ex parte’, which means that it was argued privately, in front of one judge, and I was not even notified of the court appearance, let alone allowed to protest the obvious injustice of the injunction. The injunction was also presented to the judge without full and frank disclosure on the part of the presenting attorney, whose unscrupulous method of presenting the motion was reason enough to have had it dismissed. The attorney blatantly lied to the judge telling him the tenant was still in the building and I just “locked him out one day” – she never mentioned that he had been properly and legally evicted in court three months earlier and no longer had any right to access the property. This injunction was a direct violation of my civil rights and my rights as a Bahamian property owner.
I requested an opportunity in court to oppose the injunction. The judge who signed the injunction was outraged that he had been lied to by the unscrupulous attorney representing the tenant. The judge said he was tricked into signing an injunction with incorrect and insufficient information. Because he was too upset and didn’t want to make a “snap decision,” he adjourned the case for several days saying he would make his judgement at that time. Yet, two days later, he did not overturn the injunction and wouldn’t even make eye contact with my attorney and I as he quietly delivered the news that he was not going to overturn it. It was later confirmed that he had indeed been “compromised.” Over a year later the rogue tenant is still in the building, not paying a bit of rent. The case has “disappeared” in the chaotic legal system of the Bahamas. At this time there is still no appeal date in sight. I cannot sell the property, cannot rent the property and cannot get the due rent from this rogue tenant.
This is just one small stomach churning twist in a roller-coaster of injustice and lawlessness. I have been in and out of court on a continual basis, causing tremendous loss of productivity in my work. I have written letters to the newspapers, spoken to numerous lawyers, judges, the Bar Association, the Attorney General, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and even the Prime Minister’s office. Yet no one has even taken the time to investigate the incredibly unjust situation. I have been told by three different prominent attorneys that “justice doesn’t exist in the Bahamas.”
I believe those attorneys are correct and it will be the straw that breaks the back of the Bahamian society and economy.
Lisa Wells
www.bahamasb2b.com (http://www.bahamasb2b.com)