ATTORNEY Benjamin Fraser has urged Jamaicans locally and abroad, whose homes have been effaced by Hurricane Melissa, not to vacate their lands.

“If I have my land and the building has been destroyed, I still have value in the land even though the building is not there; and you ought not to abandon the land. Losing the building doesn’t mean losing your land. Don’t abandon your land. I’m stressing this,” Fraser, who specialises in property law, estate and succession planning, and family law, said during a recent appearance on the local talk show podcast Heart to Heart hosted by Tyrell Morgan.

Fraser, in highlighting the legal definition of “land”, was at pains to point out that “the value of the land is the combination of the bare soil, vegetation, the buildings thereon, the atmosphere above the land, the potential in the land, the character in the community, and other characteristics”.

“It may look so terrible now because there has been this catastrophe that wiped out infrastructure, but I stress, don’t forget that there is value in the land itself, outside of the building,” the attorney stated.

His comments come against the background of the utter devastation wreaked by Hurricane Melissa, which now holds pride of place as the most extreme storm ever to make landfall in Jamaica. The hurricane, packing winds of 185 miles per hour, hit on October 28 near New Hope, Westmoreland, causing ruinous flooding across the southern and western belt of the island.

The system, which mauled St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover, Montego Bay in St James, and Trelawny — with the most impacted being St Elizabeth and Westmoreland — left the country after effecting untold damage on infrastructure, vegetation, and lives. The death toll from the ferocious system has climbed over 30 so far.

Fraser, in the meantime, pointed out that the legal or beneficial owners of lands do not have a general obligation to replace buildings erected on their lands or compensate the person who built it, if it has been destroyed.

In noting that “individuals with insured property are in a significantly better position to recover quickly, as insurance covers the cost of repairs and rebuilding efforts”, Fraser said those without insurance still have options available to them.

“To the best of my knowledge, the areas that have been most devastated, many of the people there don’t have insurance. So, what do they do? It’s going to require a lot of help, that’s the truth; because without insurance they would have to fund the reconstruction otherwise,” he said.

The attorney said individuals who have been displaced and who are without insurance can take several steps to protect their ownership until they are able to rebuild.

“Even if you have lost your home, you still have the land. Continue to pay the property taxes, where possible, even if you can’t get to the structure of the house. I would encourage you to repair or rebuild the fencing around your land, and it need not be an elaborate fencing. It could be barbed wire and wooden sticks that you cut off a tree; it does not need to be expensive,” the attorney schooled.

Said Fraser: “It’s one thing to lose the building, but you could lose your legal rights to the property if you abandon it. If you don’t demonstrate actions of possession over the land, enough years could pass in a worst-case scenario where you become dispossessed of your interest in the property — 12 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now. We want people to avoid a situation where there are all sorts of adverse possession claims and fighting about where their property is and who had control of their property.”

He said this is even so amid uncertainty over whether seaside settlements will be reconstructed in the same areas they are currently.

“We don’t know if, for example, coastal towns will be rebuilt where they are now. We have seen in countries like Belize where the capital of Belize was decimated by a hurricane and the Government took a policy decision to relocate it inland. We have seen in Pacific countries where cyclones and flooding damaged countries substantially and those governments decided not to rebuild in those areas.

“I’m not trying to jump the gun, I am just speaking broadly. Even if the Government decides that they’re not going to rebuild at that location, the land is still yours and we want you to protect it,” he pointed out.

Fraser said, in the interim, property owners should also check on their pegs or repair the boundaries of their properties.

“In many situations, people use trees and other objects as landmarks and those landmarks might have been lost. The extent of the devastation was so great that I saw graves being displaced, washed away. So again, check on those pegs and at a time where your family can come together to afford it, engage the services of a commissioned land surveyor if those pegs have been misplaced or if the landmarks that you normally use to demarcate your property, they’re no longer there,” Fraser advised.

“Let’s try to work out our issues in a forward thinking way, because issues around ownership and boundaries may arise in the future as a result of this hurricane and communities that have been displaced,” he added.

As for individuals who were engaged in transactions to purchase ahead of the weather event, the attorney had this to say: “These are the reasons we encourage you not to venture into transactions concerning the sale or purchase of land without legal representation. Anything can happen in that window. If you’re purchasing by cash in Jamaica, it’s 60 to 90 days. If you’re purchasing by mortgage, it’s 90 to 120 days. Those three or four months, a lot can happen and it’s unsafe if you venture into these transactions, which involve you spending often times millions of dollars, without legal support.”

Fraser also urged individuals whose titles were destroyed by the flood rains from Melissa to take steps to get replacements.

“We have a title system here where there is a Certificate of Title that is maintained at the Titles Office and you get what is called an original duplicate. As a result of the flooding and damage, it’s suspected that many documents have been lost, including titles. At some point it will become necessary to replace that lost, damaged or destroyed title and there is a particular process [by which] to do that, and I would urge you, at a time where you have the capacity to do so, to address it. Don’t just allow it to sit forever, because a title is a very important document that confirms your ownership. Even if you don’t have your original duplicate, there is always a title that mirrors exactly what you would have on the title that you have in hand, but you need to get that one replaced,” the attorney said.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness told Parliament last Tuesday that more than 116,000 of the 428,000 buildings in the database of the National Spatial Data Management Branch sustained severe damage during the passage of Hurricane Melissa. He said the damage is concentrated in Westmoreland, St Elizabeth and Manchester, according to satellite data and drone verification.

“Melissa has caused extensive damage to the nation’s housing stock, particularly in the western parishes. Leveraging our national geospatial intelligence capacity, the government has, for the first time in our history, executed a rapid, high-resolution national housing damage assessment. These findings are now guiding targeted relief and reconstruction planning across affected communities,” Holness said.

In the meantime, preliminary estimates of the damage caused by the hurricane has been put at between US$6 billion and US$7 billion, or an astounding $1 trillion. This has ripped out a significant 32 per cent of Jamaica’s gross domestic product for fiscal year 2024/2025, the Government has indicated.

A resident of Westmoreland observes the area from a house that lost its roof during Hurricane Melissa. Individuals with insured property may recover quickly, but those without insurance still have options available to them. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

FRASER…don’t forget that there is value in the land itself