A High Court Judge has re­solved a dis­pute be­tween a woman and her broth­er-in-law over a prop­er­ty her de­ceased hus­band in­her­it­ed af­ter his fa­ther’s death.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment on Thurs­day, Jus­tice Christo­pher Sieuc­hand up­held a tres­pass and il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion case brought by Dar­ren Balka­ran’s wife against her broth­er-in-law An­dre.

The law­suit re­lat­ed to a prop­er­ty that Balka­ran’s fa­ther di­vid­ed be­tween the two sib­lings and a third broth­er be­fore he passed away.

In 2013, the fam­i­ly had a meet­ing in which he (the fa­ther) said that the Balka­ran would re­ceive the front por­tion of the prop­er­ty and an apart­ment build­ing on it, while his broth­ers would split the re­main­der.

The di­vi­sion plan for the prop­er­ty was rat­i­fied in a deed of gift cre­at­ed in 2015.

Balka­ran did not take pos­ses­sion of the prop­er­ty and al­lowed his moth­er to col­lect rent from the four apart­ments in the build­ing to pay her liv­ing ex­pens­es.

Af­ter he lost his job with the re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin, Balka­ran asked his moth­er for him to col­lect the rent but she re­fused.

She re­port­ed­ly claimed that the apart­ments be­longed to An­dre, who she lived with, and she re­fused him ac­cess.

Balka­ran, through his lawyer Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, filed the case against his broth­er and moth­er.

Re­spond­ing to the case, Balka­ran’s moth­er and broth­er claimed that his fa­ther changed his mind on the di­vi­sion plan af­ter ex­e­cut­ing the deed. His moth­er died last year while the case was still pend­ing.

While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined, An­dre ad­mit­ted that he lived in one of the apart­ments with­out his broth­er’s per­mis­sion and that his wife ad­ver­tised them (the apart­ments) on so­cial me­dia.

Af­ter hear­ing the ev­i­dence when the case came up for tri­al on Thurs­day, Jus­tice Sieuc­hand up­held the case as he found that An­dre’s ev­i­dence was not co­gent or cred­i­ble.

While Jus­tice Sieuc­hand found that Balka­ran’s es­tate should be com­pen­sat­ed for the rent that was col­lect­ed, he on­ly or­dered $15,000 in nom­i­nal dam­ages based on Balka­ran pre­vi­ous­ly giv­ing his moth­er per­mis­sion to col­lect the rent.

He gave Balka­ran’s broth­er un­til Au­gust 31 to va­cate the build­ing and de­liv­er pos­ses­sion.

Jus­tice Sieuc­hand al­so grant­ed an or­der block­ing An­dre from ha­rass­ing his broth­er’s wife and fam­i­ly.

Balka­ran’s es­tate was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Niru­pa Rai and Dee­dra-Lee Mur­ray. His broth­er was rep­re­sent­ed by Dale Mon­trose.