- 521 strata properties were unregistered, mostly in Portmore
- Owners were given until the end of January to comply
- 1,532 strata corporations existed islandwide at the time
- 65% had already registered voluntarily
Owners of 521 unregistered strata properties in Jamaica, most located in Westport, Portmore, St Catherine, were notified they faced prosecution effective the end of January, according to Sandra Watson, chief executive officer of the Commission of Strata Corporations and general manager of the Real Estate Board.
Watson framed enforcement as a last resort rather than a preferred outcome. If they do not register, we will be forced to use the penalty aspect of the law. We do not want to use it, but we will be forced to, as we want every single strata plan to be registered, she said, confirming the law explicitly allows for prosecution in cases where a strata plan is not registered with the commission.
The 521 non-compliant properties sat against a considerably larger, mostly compliant national picture: the Strata Commission counted 1,532 strata corporations across Jamaica at the time, of which 994, or 65 percent, had already registered, meaning the enforcement push targeted the remaining minority who had not, concentrated heavily in a single geographic area rather than spread evenly across the island.
The Portmore concentration is a detail worth noting on its own: a single municipality accounting for the bulk of Jamaica’s unregistered strata properties suggests either a specific administrative gap in how Portmore-area developments were processed, or a local pattern of non-compliance this publication has not seen replicated at similar scale in any other parish’s strata registration data.
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