The case for reforming Jamaica’s adverse possession law has been made, in various forms, by lawyers, journalists, Privy Council justices, and now…

Jamaica’s beaches and coastline are legally public below the high-water mark, but private landowners and developers are increasingly erecting fences and structures that block public access, while sections of coastal land are being sold in transactions that may not accurately reflect the Crown’s rights in the foreshore.

Kingston, Jamaica, 25 June 2025. Jamaica has two adverse possession periods operating in parallel, and the difference between them says something important…

Squatting on private land in Kingston’s inner-city communities remains a persistent challenge for landowners and authorities. Private landowners whose property is occupied without consent face a lengthy and costly recovery process, while urban renewal efforts are complicated by the scale of informal settlement.

In Jamaica, land is more than just square footage—it’s memory, opportunity, and freedom. And no category of land carries more layered history,…

Rural parishes in Jamaica — including St. Elizabeth, Portland, St. Mary, and Trelawny — are experiencing an increase in land fraud targeting agricultural landowners, with schemes ranging from squatting on remote parcels to fake sales of Crown and private land in areas where the cadastral record is less complete than in urban centres.

Jamaica’s bauxite mining history has left a complex land rights legacy in which the surface of a parcel may be privately owned while the subsurface mineral rights belong to the Crown or are licensed to a mining company. Landowners in former and active mining areas who are unaware of this distinction can unknowingly purchase or sell properties that are subject to existing mining licences or subsurface claims.

Vacation and weekend properties — homes that are occupied for only part of the year — are among the most vulnerable categories of property in Jamaica for squatting. Extended periods of vacancy, remote ownership, and reduced community oversight create conditions in which an illegal occupant can establish a foothold that becomes increasingly difficult and costly to remove as time passes.

Road reserves — strips of land set aside for existing and future public roads — are among the most commonly encroached-upon categories of public land in Jamaica. Property owners and developers who build walls, fences, or structures on road reserve land without permission are in occupation of public property, and the relevant authority has the right to require removal at the encroacher’s cost.

Jamaica’s coastline is a Crown resource, and the foreshore — the land between the high and low water marks — cannot be privately owned or permanently enclosed. Yet encroachment by private property owners, hotels, and developers onto foreshore land is an ongoing concern in Jamaica’s coastal parishes, depriving the public of beach access and placing unpermitted structures at risk of enforcement action.