A reader writes:
My grandfather, Joseph, who everybody called Papa Joe, bought eleven acres on a hillside in St Mary sometime in the 1940s. The story in the family is that he paid for it over three years from cutting cane and that the man who sold it to him wrote a receipt on the back of a feed bag. Nobody has seen that receipt since before I was born. Some say it went in the fire that took my great-aunt’s kitchen. Some say the termites had it. My mother believed it was in a biscuit tin that went to England with Uncle Lloyd. Uncle Lloyd is dead now, and his children never heard of any tin.
So what we have is eleven acres, four houses, one church-yard grave, a breadfruit tree everybody claims, and no paper.
I want to say something that I think many families feel but don’t say out loud. Land without a title is holding us back. Not only my family. I see it up and down the road. And I have come to believe that our silence about it is not respect for the old people. It is a debt we are leaving for our children.
Let me tell you how it looks from where I stand. Two years ago my cousin Andrea wanted to put a proper second floor on the house her mother built. She had the income, a good job in Port Maria, and she went to the bank. The first thing they asked her for was a title. She came back and sat on my verandah and cried, not because of the bank, but because she said, “Everton, I am forty-six years old and I don’t own anything.” She has lived on that land her whole life.
My own son wanted to start a small poultry operation on the flat piece at the bottom. He did his research, he spoke to somebody about a loan for a business, and he met the same wall. He is in Kingston now, working security. I don’t blame him. But I wonder how many young people have left the country areas because the land their family has farmed for seventy years can’t be used for anything more than what it is being used for today.
Then there is the quarrelling. As long as nothing is written down, everything is a matter of memory, and memory is a funny thing. My aunt remembers Papa Joe saying the lower side was for the girls. My uncle’s children remember something different. Every funeral, somebody says, “We must sort out the land,” and everybody agrees, and then we eat, and then everybody goes home. The next time we meet is the next funeral. There are fewer of the old ones each time, and every one who goes takes a piece of the story with them.
I am not writing this to point fingers, because the finger points at me too. I am the eldest grandson still living on the land. For twenty years I told myself it was not my place, that the aunties should lead, that the ones abroad had more money and should pay for it. The truth is I was afraid. Afraid of the cost, which I don’t even know. Afraid of starting something that would turn cousins into enemies. And, if I am honest, a little afraid that if things were written down properly, my portion might turn out smaller than I have always believed.
I think that fear is in a lot of families. Leaving it vague lets everybody keep believing the best version of their own story. But vague does not protect anybody. It only postpones the fight to a day when the people who could have settled it are gone.
I also want to say something to the churches, because the church is where half of these families are on a Sunday. We preach about stewardship and about leaving an inheritance to our children’s children. Proverbs says a good man does that. But an inheritance nobody can prove is a very thin kind of inheritance. I would like to hear more pastors say from the pulpit that sorting out the family land is not worldly business, it is part of caring for the next generation. I would like to see a church hall offered for a family meeting, or a brother in the congregation who knows the process sit down with a family who doesn’t.
Last month I did something I should have done long ago. I called every one of Papa Joe’s grandchildren I could find, here and in England and Florida, and I said we are having a meeting in August, on a video call for those who can’t come, and the only item is the land. Some were glad. One cousin told me to leave it alone, that I was stirring up trouble. Maybe I am. But I would rather stir it now, while Aunt Pearl is still alive to tell us what she remembers, than leave my grandchildren to fight over a breadfruit tree.
I don’t know how this will end. I don’t even know what it will cost. I only know the land has been waiting seventy years for somebody to be brave, and I am tired of it being somebody else.
— Everton, St Mary
Editor’s note
Everton’s letter names something many families recognise: vagueness feels peaceful, but it usually just postpones the argument. Two lessons stand out. First, start with information rather than opinions. Before anyone talks about portions, find out what records exist; an attorney-at-law and a commissioned land surveyor can explain what searches, surveys and processes might apply, and it is worth asking whether any titling assistance is available where the land is. Second, start while the older generation can still speak. Their memories are not legal proof, but they often point to the documents, boundaries and witnesses that matter. Being first to raise it takes courage. It is rarely wasted.
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.
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
Visit our YouTube Community ↗