A reader writes:
I have been a nurse in London for nineteen years. For most of that time I have been saying “one day I will buy a piece of land at home” the way some people say “one day I will learn the piano”. Every time I went back to Trelawny on holiday, somebody would show me a lot, and every time I would get excited and then come back to London and hear another story about a cousin’s friend who sent money for land that turned out to belong to somebody else. So I did nothing.
Three years ago my mother had a stroke. She recovered, thank God, but it frightened me. I realised I could keep waiting until I was sixty and have nothing, or I could try to do it properly now, even if I could not be there. My shifts don’t allow me to fly back for weeks at a time. So I decided to do it the only way I could: from here.
I want to share what worked, because I know many of us abroad are in the same position, and because I made one or two mistakes that could have been worse.
First, I picked my people before I picked my land. I asked around my church here and back home for an attorney-at-law who had handled sales for people overseas. I spoke to three on video. The one I chose did not rush me and explained things without making me feel stupid. She told me at the start that she would not act for me and the seller at the same time, which I found reassuring. I also asked her to recommend a commissioned land surveyor who was independent from the seller.
Second, I told myself I would not fall in love with anything I had not seen properly. A half-acre came up through a family friend, not far from my mother’s district, and on the first video call I knew I wanted it. The land sloped gently down to a gully, there were two big breadfruit trees, and you could see the sea if you stood at the top. I had to sit on my hands, so to speak.
My attorney did the title search and found that the land was part of a larger parcel. The seller had a title for the whole thing but the half-acre had not been properly subdivided. That was my first lesson. It did not mean the deal was off, but it meant there was more work to be done and more time needed before any money changed hands.
Then came the night I will never forget. The surveyor went out to check the boundaries, and my younger brother went with him holding his phone on a video call. It was early morning in Jamaica, which meant it was about two o’clock in London and I was on my break from a night shift. I stood in the staff room in my uniform, with a cup of tea going cold, and watched my brother walk from peg to peg while the surveyor explained each corner. At one point they found that one of the old marker stones was a good few metres off from where the seller had said. The surveyor was very calm about it. I was not. But because we found it then, it got sorted out before the survey was finalised, not after I had built a wall in the wrong place.
My mistakes? I trusted a relative’s word on the price instead of getting an independent valuation, and I probably paid a little more than I should have. I also nearly sent a deposit directly to the seller’s personal account before my attorney told me very firmly not to. I will not make that mistake again, and I would beg anyone reading not to make it once.
The whole thing took about fourteen months from first call to title in my name. That is much longer than I expected. There were weeks when nothing happened and I was sure it was falling apart. My attorney kept a shared folder with every document, and I kept a notebook of every call and every payment with dates. My brother went to the land more times than I can count, and I paid for his petrol and his lunch every time, because I did not want him to feel used.
I finally stood on the land last Christmas, with my mother leaning on my arm. We found the pegs. We stood at the top and looked at the sea. She said, “So this is what you were doing on the phone at night.” I said yes, Mummy.
I have not started building yet. I am saving. But it is mine, it is properly mine, and I did it from a staff room in London with a cold cup of tea. If I could do it, others can. Just do it slowly and with the right people.
— Claudette, London
Editor’s note
Claudette’s story shows that buying from abroad can work when the right people are chosen first: an independent attorney-at-law, a commissioned land surveyor and a trusted person on the ground who is thanked and not taken for granted. Her two near-mistakes are common ones. An independent valuation matters, and deposits should go through proper, traceable channels as your attorney advises, never informally to a seller. Above all, she let the process take the time it needed. Patience is not only a virtue in land transactions; it is a safeguard.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.
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