“We Are Not Moving”: A Church Built on a Verbal Promise Gets an Eviction Notice From the State

• A Chaguanas church was served an eviction notice by the State Lands Office
• It had occupied two acres of state land since 2017 with no written lease
• The congregation said it spent over $35,000 clearing the site and putting up a tent
• The pastor vowed to stay put

A small Trinidad congregation that built its worship space on a verbal promise found out in February 2020 how little that promise was worth. The Trinidad Guardian reported that officials from the State Lands Office, part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources, served an eviction notice on Soul Revival Kingdom Ministries on February 14, 2020.

The church, led by Pastor Esther Cruickshank and with 22 parishioners, had been on two acres of commercial state land at Carlsen Field, Chaguanas, near the head office of the teachers’ union TTUTA and the Chase Village Flyover. The site had once housed Tanteak Limited. The congregation said it moved there in 2017 after a verbal agreement with State Lands officials, but it had no written lease or legal documents.

The church said it had invested more than $35,000 cleaning the land and erecting a PVC tent for services, and it was setting up a car wash on the site when the notice arrived. Cruickshank told the Guardian she was not leaving Carlsen Field, and members planned a demonstration.

The Trinidad Express carried the government’s side. Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat said he had first stepped in after complaints of squatting. “I can say that after receiving complaints of squatting on this site, I first intervened in December 2018,” he said, adding: “I would defend my actions when called upon to do so.” Cruickshank was defiant: “We are not moving; they will have to move us out themselves.”

The case turned on paperwork. Whatever officials may have said in 2017, a church with nothing in writing had no enforceable right to stay, and the money it spent improving the site gave it no protection.

Many Jamaican congregations are in a similar position, meeting on government land, family land or a neighbour’s lot on the strength of a spoken agreement. The Carlsen Field eviction is a plain lesson for church boards here: before spending on clearing, building or income projects such as a car wash, get a written lease, licence or title, and check that whoever gave permission had the authority to give it. Otherwise the church is investing in land it can be told to leave.

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