Supreme Court dismisses adverse possession claim despite 30-year occupation of Amity land

A couple who was fighting to keep two parcels of land in Westmoreland, owned by the husband’s deceased boss, was left disappointed after the Supreme Court threw out their claim for adverse possession and ordered the husband to give up the properties along with a tractor.

The husband, Michael Vanriel, who was an employee and relative of the landowner’s previous wife, was given notice on March 14, 2022, that he was squatting on both properties and was asked to vacate within 30 days but refused.

Mr Vanriel, who had been permitted by cane farmer and haulage contractor Euton Woodbine to build a house on a portion of the five-acre property at Amity, and to farm, will still be allowed to live on the land by the court order.

However, Justice Sharon Millwood Moore, in her judgment, ruled against an order for him to pay over $2.1 million in mesne profits for trespassing on the other land, a one-acre property in Hertford, from September 2018 to April 2022 and continuing.

Mr Vanriel had attempted to take possession of both properties in Amity and Hertford following the death of his late boss’s wife in 2012.

Euton Woodbine, four years before his death in 1996, had given Mr Vanriel a quarter acre of land as advance payment to build a house on the Amity property and had, by oral agreement, leased him the remainder to continue farming cane.

ADMINISTRATOR OF ESTATE

However, following the death of the late farmer’s wife, Delcine Woodbine, in 2012, the couple’s daughter, Eneasha Woodbine, had her cousin, Carlton Woodbine, appointed as administrator of her father’s estate. He initiated a claim against Mr Vanriel to recover possession of the lands.

The claim, filed on April 27, 2022, sought orders including that the defendant quit and deliver up possession of both properties, as well as to hand over a Ford 7000 tractor or pay $4 million.

However, Mr Vanriel and his wife, Beverley Vanriel, filed a claim two days later in which they sought several declarations, including that they had dispossessed all parties with any entitlement to the Amity property, and that the defendant and any party with any entitlement under Euton Woodbine’s estate were barred from any interest in both properties.

They also sought an order for the Registrar of Titles to issue a certificate of title in their name as joint tenants and further that the grant of administration to Carlton Woodbine was invalid, void, and of no legal effect.

Carlton Woodbine, through his lawyer, Andrew Irving, submitted that Mr Vanriel was farming cane on the Amity property with the couple’s permission, but that his licence was revoked following the wife’s death in 2012 or when he was served notice.

Irving also argued that the paper owner of the Amity property was not dispossessed, nor was there any discontinuation of possession before 2012, and further that Mr Vanriel had admitted to having an oral agreement with the couple.

“It was submitted on behalf of the claimant that adverse possession did not arise on the basis of occupation exercised at the request or with the consent of the paper owner,” the judgment said.

Irving also contended that the evidence showing that Carlton Woodbine and Delcine Woodbine paid the property taxes between 1996 and 2012 further proved that there was no discontinuation of possession.

In relation to the Hertford property, he said Mr Vanriel was a squatter when he took possession of the land in 2018, but possession continued up until 2018 because, at different points, the wife and two other persons had occupied the property.

‘INEQUITABLE AND UNJUST’

Mr Vanriel, through his lawyers, Leonard Green and Nyron Wright, argued that it would be “inequitable and unjust” for anyone, including Carlton Woodbine, to have a claim on the property which he and his wife had been occupying undisturbed for the last 30 years. The lawyers further argued that the inordinate delay of over 20 years after the death of the deceased would have equated to a waiver of any reasonable right or interest in the property.

The lawyers argued further that their client had made it clear “to the world at large” that he had the requisite intention to dispossess the deceased or his estate of the land.

Mr Vanriel’s act of taking possession of and occupying the Amity land, commercialising the land through farming for their benefit without paying any money to or seeking the permission of the deceased or his representatives, and taking out a loan for the construction of and subsequently constructing buildings on the said Amity property, was evidence.

The court, however, found that Mr Vanriel was not in possession of the Hertford property for the required period of time to properly ground a claim for legal title.

Similarly, the court found that Mr Vanriel’s claim to have dispossessed the owner of the Amity property fell short of the statutory minimum period of possession required, given that he was served a notice to quit in March 2022.

The court concluded that it was satisfied, “on a balance of probabilities, that the legal title in the deceased Euton Woodbine has not been extinguished, and as such, the estate of the deceased has not dispossessed the Amity and Hertford properties to the grant of administration to the claimant”.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com