A Church Group Said 169 Acres in Clarendon Were Swallowed by a Neighbour’s Title. The Court of Appeal Said No

• Associated Gospel Assemblies claimed 169 acres of unregistered land in Clarendon
• A neighbour’s 123-acre title was re-surveyed at more than 284 acres
• The church group’s interim injunction was discharged in 2019
• The Court of Appeal dismissed its appeal in November 2022

A church organisation’s attempt to stop its neighbour from dealing with disputed land in rural Clarendon ended in defeat at Jamaica’s Court of Appeal in November 2022, in a judgment that highlights the power of a registered title over land held without one.

Associated Gospel Assemblies said it owns 169 acres of unregistered land at Breadnut Hill, Cross Keys, Clarendon. Next door is registered land bought in 1995 by the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League. The league’s certificate of title described 123 acres “more or less”, but a 2018 survey commissioned for re-registration found 284.171 acres. The church group argued that the new survey plan had wrongly absorbed its estate into the league’s title.

In November 2018 the Assemblies filed a claim and, the following month, obtained an interim injunction without notice to the other side. In March 2019 a judge discharged that injunction, and the church group appealed. It also asked the appeal court to admit fresh evidence in the form of a National Land Agency investigative report prepared in May 2019.

Justices McDonald-Bishop, D Fraser and Simmons refused to admit the fresh evidence, dismissed the appeal and allowed the league’s counter-appeal. The court found that “the indefeasibility principle availed the respondent as the registered proprietor of the disputed land,” and that there was “no reasonable justification for the continuation of the [interim] injunction.” The ruling dealt with the injunction, not the final ownership of the land, which remained a question for trial.

The case turns on a problem that affects many Jamaican churches: land held for generations without a registered title. When a neighbour’s titled boundary is re-surveyed, an unregistered owner can find itself arguing from a weaker position, even with long use of the land behind it.

For denominations, returnees and diaspora families with unregistered property in Jamaica, the message is to register it. Taking land through systematic registration or a first-time title application costs money and time, but it is far cheaper than trying to win back acres in the courts after someone else’s title has been drawn around them.

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