DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A fa­ther and son from Cunu­pia have won a law­suit against a moth­er and son from Debe over con­trol of a prop­er­ty. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment on Wednes­day, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad up­held Bhag­wan­dass and Vashudev Ma­haraj’s case against Shirley Per­sad and her son Roger Sukhu. 

The law­suit re­lat­ed to a prop­er­ty lo­cat­ed along SS Erin Road in Debe, which was owned by the moth­er and son. 

The Ma­hara­js claimed that in Sep­tem­ber 2017, they agreed to pur­chase the prop­er­ty from Per­sad and Sukhu, who were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties pay­ing their mort­gage. 

They claimed that they paid $654,471.88 to the bank Per­sad and Sukhu owed and agreed to for­give a $66,000 debt they owed pri­or in ex­change for the prop­er­ty. 

They claimed Per­sad and Sukhu signed hand­writ­ten and type­writ­ten agree­ments and a mem­o­ran­dum of trans­fer was ex­e­cut­ed. 

How­ev­er, the trans­fer could not be reg­is­tered as Per­sad and Sukhu barred the Ma­hara­js’ val­u­a­tors from en­ter­ing the prop­er­ty to in­spect it for a val­u­a­tion re­port. 

The law­suit seek­ing to en­force the sale agree­ment was filed in late 2022 af­ter the par­ties failed to re­solve their dis­pute through ne­go­ti­a­tions. 

In their de­fence, Per­sad and Sukhu claimed that they nev­er agreed to the sale of the prop­er­ty as they be­lieved that they were ob­tain­ing a loan from the Ma­hara­js to sat­is­fy their oblig­a­tions to the bank. 

They al­so con­tend­ed that the mem­o­ran­dum of trans­fer ex­e­cut­ed by the Ma­hara­js’ lawyer was ob­tained by fraud­u­lent or de­cep­tive means as they point­ed to the fact that the mon­ey paid by the Ma­hara­js was a gross un­der­val­ue of the prop­er­ty, which they es­ti­mat­ed to be val­ued at $3 mil­lion. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad not­ed that while he rec­om­mend­ed that a val­u­a­tion be done to as­sist with de­ter­min­ing the case, Per­sad and Sukhu on­ly re­pro­duced a re­port late in the pro­ceed­ings and their lawyer did not fol­low the cor­rect pro­ce­dure for it to be ten­dered in­to ev­i­dence. 

Stat­ing that Per­sad and Sukhu were not re­li­able wit­ness­es as they de­part­ed ma­te­ri­al­ly and sig­nif­i­cant­ly from their plead­ed case, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said he be­lieved the Ma­hara­js ver­sion of the events over theirs. 

“All in all, notwith­stand­ing the time that has gone by since the sign­ing of the agree­ments and the mem­o­ran­dum of trans­fer, the court sees noth­ing be­fore it to cause it to re­frain from grant­i­ng the re­liefs claimed by the claimants,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said. 

He point­ed out that they ad­mit­ted the Ma­hara­js paid the mon­ey and they re­tained con­trol over the prop­er­ty with­out re­pay­ing the fa­ther and son. 

“The claimants have not re­ceived any in­ter­est on their mon­ey paid over to the bank and have re­ceived no in­come from the prop­er­ty nor have they got­ten any ben­e­fit,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said. 

He or­dered Per­sad and Sukhu to sur­ren­der the prop­er­ty to the Ma­hara­js and to pay them for all the rents and prof­its they ob­tained from it, less their le­git­i­mate ex­pens­es in­clud­ing land and build­ing tax­es and util­i­ties. 

He al­so or­dered the moth­er and son to pay any penal­ty the Ma­hara­js may in­cur from the late reg­is­tra­tion of the trans­fer. 

They were al­so or­dered to pay $14,000 in le­gal costs. 

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad sought to give guid­ance to at­tor­neys on their con­duct when act­ing for a ven­dor and pur­chas­er in land sales. 

He rec­om­mend­ed that such trans­ac­tions should on­ly be con­duct­ed by the same at­tor­ney if they ad­vise the pur­chas­er to seek in­de­pen­dent le­gal ad­vice and they agree to sign a cer­tifi­cate waiv­ing their right to do so. 

The Ma­hara­js were rep­re­sent­ed by Yaseen Ahmed, and Tara Lutch­man. Per­sad and Sukhu were rep­re­sent­ed by Jee­van Ram­per­sad.