He Farmed the Land for 15 Years and Paid the Taxes. Someone Else Just Claimed It

• A man occupied and paid taxes on land for 15+ years
• Someone else claimed it through adverse possession in 2025
• He never filed his own adverse possession claim
• People reportedly scan the NLA for empty-looking lots to claim

A St Thomas man, who asked to be identified only as John Duffus out of fear of reprisal, says he is preparing for a court battle after discovering someone else is seeking title to the half-acre property he has farmed and paid taxes on for more than 15 years. He had occupied the land after its previous owner, since deceased, allowed him to farm it while paying the taxes annually, a routine he kept up with receipts to prove it, missing only a single year.

His first sign anything had changed came on a Sunday in July, when groups of people began touring the property, referencing a for sale advertisement he had never placed or authorised. He went to the National Land Agency the following day with his tax receipts and learned someone had already claimed the property through adverse possession in 2025, a claim he had no prior knowledge of and no opportunity to contest before it was processed.

Duffus’s account points to a specific vulnerability in how adverse possession claims can originate: people simply go through National Land Agency records looking for lots that appear empty or unclaimed, and file for title on land someone else has actually been occupying, farming and paying taxes on the whole time, provided the true long-term occupant hasn’t formalised their own claim first. Fifteen years of continuous occupation, exactly the kind of use adverse possession law is meant to protect, offered Duffus no automatic defence once a competing claim was filed and processed in his absence.

The case sits inside a broader scrutiny of Jamaica’s adverse possession framework this publication has covered before, land that changes hands based on twelve years of open, exclusive use, a standard that protects long-term occupants against absentee owners in principle, but that Duffus’s experience shows can just as easily be exploited by someone with no history on the land at all, provided they move to formalise a claim before the actual occupant does. For Duffus, and likely others in similar positions, the practical lesson is stark: paying taxes and working land for years is not the same as holding a formal claim to it, and the gap between the two is exactly where a stranger with the right paperwork can step in.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com