Four days af­ter her home was de­mol­ished, a Ram­jat­tarn Trace, La Hor­quet­ta squat­ter, has threat­ened to take le­gal ac­tion against the State.

Ann Marie Lep­lat­te, through her at­tor­ney Bri­an Baig, yes­ter­day sent pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters to both the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) and the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, Paula Drakes, re­quest­ing proof that they had the au­thor­i­ty to de­stroy her home and be­long­ings.

Baig, who is al­so a le­gal of­fi­cer for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), said his 42-year-old client has been liv­ing at Ram­jat­tan Trace since birth.

He said, over the last four decades, she’s de­vel­oped the land, con­struct­ed a home, gained wa­ter and elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions, and raised a fam­i­ly in­clud­ing six chil­dren and six grand­chil­dren with­out dis­tur­bance, there­by nul­li­fy­ing the said own­er­ship of the lands pur­port­ed to be owned by the State.

Guardian Me­dia ob­tained a copy of the le­gal no­tice, which gave the HDC 24 hours to re­spond or face le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

Baig said, “My client has been there since 1982 and has been gross­ly mis­treat­ed, so there­fore, we have tak­en le­gal ac­tion, and they have a pre­req­ui­site time with­in 24 hours to re­spond. We are ask­ing HDC to show that they have the au­thor­i­ty to act in the way they did. Along with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, we have al­so asked that they show that they are the per­sons who are in charge of those lands. (Last Thurs­day) No one of­fi­cial­ly said or iden­ti­fied them­selves as Mr X or Mrs Y rep­re­sent­ing the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion or even that of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, yet they had on their cloth­ing HDC. We have al­so called up­on them to cease and de­sist any ac­tion against these per­sons.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Drakes and HDC but re­ceived no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day evening.

Last week, 12 struc­tures were de­mol­ished by the au­thor­i­ties, who sent evic­tion no­tices since Oc­to­ber last year warn­ing of the de­mo­li­tion if the area was not va­cat­ed by the end of Jan­u­ary, 2025. HDC had said fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ty was tak­ing place at Ram­jat­tan Trace, with State land be­ing sold to peo­ple who had re­cent­ly erect­ed hous­es.

But Baig said he’s in talks to rep­re­sent oth­er squat­ters as well.

He added, “We would have met all the res­i­dents, my­self and le­gal col­league, and up­on check­ing so far, one per­son has fall­en with­in a pre­req­ui­site time­line for the law, but we are still speak­ing with oth­er per­sons as there are per­sons who may al­so fall with­in the time­line of my client.

“I must say that these ac­tions are very cal­lous and cold-heart­ed in the way that they be­haved. This is not the way the State should op­er­ate. We are no longer in the days of the king, where you walk with hors­es and ax­es and de­stroy peo­ple’s homes.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is for com­ment to the im­pend­ing le­gal ac­tion were un­suc­cess­ful.

How­ev­er, in a re­lease on Sun­day, she de­nied claims by Ma­yaro Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) Rush­ton Paray that there’s a lack of struc­tured poli­cies to ad­dress the squat­ting prob­lem.

Robin­son-Reg­is said the Gov­ern­ment has been proac­tive in en­forc­ing a se­ries of well-de­fined poli­cies to ad­dress squat­ting in a sus­tain­able and hu­mane man­ner.

“MP Paray’s claim that the Gov­ern­ment has not im­ple­ment­ed struc­tured poli­cies to ad­dress squat­ting is not on­ly mis­lead­ing but whol­ly un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed. For decades, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has been proac­tive in in­sti­tut­ing and en­forc­ing a se­ries of well-de­fined leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy frame­works de­signed to ad­dress squat­ting in a sus­tain­able and hu­mane man­ner.

“One such ini­tia­tive is led by the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA), which, un­der Sec­tion 5(4) of the State Land (Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure) Act, is tasked with im­ple­ment­ing these poli­cies. To sug­gest that no such frame­work ex­ists, as MP Paray im­plies, is a gross mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of re­al­i­ty... MP Paray’s claim that squat­ter com­mu­ni­ties have been ne­glect­ed by the Gov­ern­ment ig­nores the ex­ten­sive work the LSA has un­der­tak­en in this area,” the min­is­ter said.