De­bat­ably, Al­bert Ein­stein once said, “In­san­i­ty is do­ing the same thing over and over again and ex­pect­ing dif­fer­ent re­sults.” It is un­clear whether Ein­stein coined the phrase, but the sen­ti­ment holds weight. If these words are true, then our so­ci­ety rel­ish­es and rev­els in its in­san­i­ty.

Change. The one word that is used rou­tine­ly to promise im­prove­ment in our ser­vices, to em­brace re­forms or to im­prove pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Yet, the one thing that nev­er hap­pens is change. Years pass by, dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments are elect­ed, pub­lic ser­vants re­tire, new per­sons are ap­point­ed, and we con­tin­ue as we have in the past. Ac­knowl­edg­ing a bro­ken sys­tem, but not fix­ing it, not im­prov­ing and still wait­ing for a dif­fer­ent re­sult.

I en­joy my pro­fes­sion. It is one that I de­cid­ed on at the ten­der age of ten. I al­ways knew ex­act­ly what field of study and work I want­ed. Do I re­gret it? Most days, no. Then. There are days when I have to deal with is­sues out­side of my con­trol, and I have to search deep in­to my soul to find the pa­tience re­quired.

I am sure many per­sons in our coun­try have ei­ther had the need to ap­ply for Let­ters of Ad­min­is­tra­tion/Grant of Pro­bate or trans­fer prop­er­ty. These are usu­al­ly non-con­tentious is­sues and should be the eas­i­er as­pect of work in the le­gal pro­fes­sion. No­tably, I said should be. In this coun­try, these two pro­ce­dures, which should be rou­tine, can feel like walk­ing a tightrope be­tween san­i­ty and in­san­i­ty. These pro­ce­dures, which were de­vel­oped and con­tin­ued for count­less years, ap­pear to still be in the teething stages, and we have yet to get them right.

It is un­palat­able to have to ex­plain to any­one why their pro­bate ap­pli­ca­tion is in its sec­ond or third year be­fore the Pro­bate Reg­istry and still can­not be grant­ed. Par­tic­u­lar­ly when there are oth­er ap­pli­ca­tions which are grant­ed in their first year of fil­ing.

There are many per­sons who be­lieve that these de­lays are due to their at­tor­ney at law or some fail­ure on the at­tor­ney’s part. Sad­ly, that is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the case. Ap­pli­ca­tions are lodged, and there are times when ap­pli­ca­tions are queried; the nec­es­sary queries re­vert to at­tor­neys for a re­sponse.

I take is­sue with many of these queries. A mis­take that needs to be cor­rect­ed is fair, an omis­sion that needs to be ad­dressed is al­so fair, but queries based on a par­tic­u­lar per­son’s pre­ferred writ­ing style are un­nec­es­sary. Queries ad­dress­ing is­sues which are al­ready ven­ti­lat­ed in the ap­pli­ca­tion are slop­py. This sim­ply adds to the al­ready un­rea­son­able time­line in hav­ing ap­pli­ca­tions grant­ed.

It ap­pears that lit­tle con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to the ap­pli­cants who have ex­pe­ri­enced an un­time­ly death in their im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly and need this ap­pli­ca­tion to ac­cess much-need­ed fi­nances.

Yet, the de­lay in pro­bate ap­pli­ca­tions pales in com­par­i­son to the process of reg­is­ter­ing a deed. A deed of con­veyance or mem­o­ran­dum of trans­fer must first be as­sessed for stamp du­ty be­fore reg­is­tra­tion. Now con­sid­er a re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence: a deed was signed by the Reg­is­trar of the Supreme Court as was re­quired by a Court Or­der. With­in a day or two of col­lect­ing the doc­u­ment, it was de­posit­ed for as­sess­ment. The doc­u­ment was de­posit­ed in April and was on­ly avail­able for col­lec­tion in Sep­tem­ber.

Up­on col­lect­ing the doc­u­ment, it was as­cer­tained that a penal­ty of al­most $5,000 was now at­tached to the trans­fer. The said penal­ty was due to a con­tend­ed de­lay of over two months from the time of the deed be­ing signed to the time of as­sess­ment. The catch be­ing, the de­lay was not on the at­tor­neys’ or the client’s part; the en­tire de­lay was due to the Stamp Du­ty Di­vi­sion of the Board of In­land Rev­enue. No­tably, part of the de­lay, if I had to guess, would be the fact that the air-con­di­tion­ers have been down in their San Fer­nan­do Of­fice for sev­er­al months, and they have been shut­ting their doors at 10 am dai­ly. It would ap­pear that the penal­ty mon­ey is meant to pur­chase a new air-con­di­tion­ing unit.

Af­ter hav­ing the doc­u­ment ac­cessed for stamp du­ty, the nec­es­sary tax­es are paid, and the doc­u­ment is sent to be reg­is­tered. Now, a le­gal clerk must leave San Fer­nan­do to trav­el to Port-of-Spain to have the doc­u­ment reg­is­tered. Imag­ine my con­cern when a counter-clerk in­di­cat­ed that he was not pleased with the word­ing of a le­gal doc­u­ment and had the le­gal clerk re­turn to San Fer­nan­do to have the changes made and ini­tialled by the at­tor­ney.

On day two of reg­is­ter­ing the same doc­u­ment, the male counter-clerk was not present, so a fe­male counter-clerk re­viewed the doc­u­ment and de­cid­ed that she was not pleased with the changes and had the doc­u­ment re­turned to be amend­ed and ini­tialled. It begs the ques­tion as to whether these per­sons have a stan­dard re­quire­ment in ac­cept­ing doc­u­ments or whether the re­quire­ment de­pends on the read­er and their frame of mind at the time.

The more we hope for change, the more we keep go­ing in cir­cles. Round and round we go un­til some­one takes pity and de­clares the ap­pli­ca­tion grant­ed or the doc­u­ment ac­cept­ed.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is Head of Cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com