435 of 500 Acres Gone: The Gleaner Says It Is Time to Rethink the Law That Lets Squatters Take Church Land

• A Gleaner editorial took up churches’ losses of land to squatters
• It cited 435 of 500 Moravian acres lost at Lititz, St Elizabeth
• It noted judges who had called for the law to be re-examined
• It urged legislators to balance property rights and social need

After reporting that churches across Jamaica had lost large areas of land to squatters, The Gleaner used its editorial of November 1, 2018 to ask how the law should treat people who hold legal title but lose possession. The editorial, headlined “Land and right of ownership”, set the churches’ losses against the scale of informal settlement across the island.

The paper noted that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jamaicans, roughly a quarter to a third of the population, live in squatter or informal communities, many without legal title. It linked this to colonial history and rapid urban growth, and argued that insecure tenure holds communities back: settlements lack infrastructure, and residents cannot turn property into wealth.

It then turned to the owners. The Moravian Church, it said, had lost 435 of its 500 acres at Lititz in St Elizabeth, going back to the 1970s. Other denominations, including Baptists, Methodists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics and evangelical churches, faced similar losses. The editorial quoted the Jamaica Baptist Union’s Karl Johnson: “Too often, what is coming across is a kind of disregard for just any framework of respect for laws and land ownership.”

The editorial pointed to judges who had been uneasy with the law of adverse possession, under which people who occupy land for long enough can claim it. It said one Supreme Court judge had described an outcome as “not the happiest” for an owner who lost land this way, while Justice Ingrid Mangatal had suggested it was high time for legislators to look again at the law and consider changes like those made in England for registered land. “The clear implication here is the need to balance property rights and social need,” the editorial said, adding: “It is perhaps time for the legislature to consider this matter.”

For churches, and for Jamaicans overseas who own family or church land they rarely see, the message is the same. The law does not protect land just because a title exists in a drawer. Regular inspection, clear boundaries, paid-up property tax and quick action when someone moves in are still an owner’s best defence, whatever reform Parliament eventually makes.

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