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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Disabled man wins appeal after being denied access to Store Bay home

by

Derek Achong
24 days ago
20250128
Justice Kevin Ramcharan

Justice Kevin Ramcharan

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A dis­abled man is thank­ful that he has a home again af­ter suc­cess­ful­ly ap­peal­ing a pre­vi­ous court rul­ing fol­low­ing a dis­pute over ac­cess to his de­ceased step­moth­er’s prop­er­ty near Store Bay in To­ba­go. 

The case of Sean Moses was high­light­ed by the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty (LAAA) in a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

Moses ex­pressed grat­i­tude to­wards LAAA for tak­ing his ap­peal for­ward and help­ing him to re­ceive a favourable out­come last week.

Moses 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.”

Moses, who is an am­putee, was named as the ex­ecu­tor of his step­moth­er’s will. 

He and oth­er rel­a­tives were al­so named as ben­e­fi­cia­ries of her es­tate which in­clud­ed a one-acre par­cel of land near Store Bay with a small wood­en house used by Moses. In 2019, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran ruled that the will had been tam­pered with af­ter it was ex­e­cut­ed to the ex­clu­sion of named ben­e­fi­cia­ries. 

The judge up­held the orig­i­nal will and ruled that those named on it would ben­e­fit. 

Al­though Moses was among those who stood to ben­e­fit and was not found to have en­gaged in the fraud, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran grant­ed an in­junc­tion bar­ring him ac­cess to the prop­er­ty he lived on. 

Moses was on­ly able to chal­lenge the out­come with the as­sis­tance of the LAAA, who ap­point­ed Asha Watkins-Montserin, and le­gal of­fi­cer Javier For­rester to rep­re­sent him in an ap­peal. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment last week, Ap­pel­late Judges Maria Wil­son, Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, and Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son par­tial­ly up­held Moses’ ap­peal and dis­charged the in­junc­tion. 

They ruled that Moses was a valid ben­e­fi­cia­ry in the will and had a vest­ed in­ter­est in the land.

They al­so ruled that he was en­ti­tled to ac­cess. 

They al­so var­ied Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran’s de­ci­sion to or­der Moses to pay $14,000 in le­gal costs for the orig­i­nal law­suit. They al­so de­clared that two of Moses’ rel­a­tives had an eq­ui­table in­ter­est in a house left to them by Moses’ step­moth­er on part of the par­cel of land. 

In its re­lease, the LAAA not­ed that it was es­tab­lished to pro­vide le­gal ser­vices and rep­re­sen­ta­tion to peo­ple of small to mod­er­ate means.


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