A San Pedro land owner named Lisa McCorkle Guerrero who had gone through all the steps at the Lands Department and was lined up to get the final purchase price for her land - was surprised to find that title had suddenly been granted to someone else. That someone is Beverly Anglin, the sister of the Prime Minister's driver - who was able to get title for a San Pedro property which McCorkle Guerrero had been reclaiming and developing since 2004.
In 2019, she tried to regularize the land in the Secret Beach area which she had filled up over the years - and everything was going well right up to September of 2023, when she was granted a lease for the property. She was just waiting for a purchase price to make it final - but to her surprise, in November 2023, Beverly Anglin got full title for the two million dollar property in just a few days. And the asking price from government? Just $2,500 dollars.
McCorkle Guerrero held that basically she had been basically robbed of a property she filled and developed - so she hired attorney Dean Barrow to challenge the legitimacy of the title given to Anglin.
Yesterday, Justice Martha Alexander found decisively in favour of McCorkle Guerrero, ruling that there was no legitimate basis for Ms Anglin to retain the title and that, quote, "it is unconscionable for the court to protect a title that was questionably acquired."
We spoke to Barrow via Zoom about the judgement today and he explained how the Lands Department worked with her until suddenly they switched up:
Dean Barrow, Attorney - Lisa McCorkle Guerrero
"She went in and they told her, well, apply for a lease. First of all, before that, the Ministry of Lands, the registrar actually agreed to do what is called the mutation regarding the new parcel. So that it was given a number finally, in 2019,"
"But they told her their steps to go through. Apply for a lease. She did so. She did her survey. She got the survey authenticated, she got the lease. Then she applied for the purchase price. And that was where they began to stall her. She simply could not get an answer as to when the purchase price - which officials had promised her would come - as to when the purchase price would in fact reach her until somebody inside gave her a stare and said, listen, you're not going to get anywhere. Indeed, the officials have already given the parcel to Miss Beverly Anglin, who, is the sister of the Edwin Hill, the driver of the good prime minister of Belize, noh?"
"That was when she complained bitterly to say but you, you people have been leading me on. Everything you've told me to do. I have done, you know how long I've had this property. You did the mutation. You've seen the amount of investment that I've put in it. I, I, I'm in occupation. I am in use of the property. You can't do this."
"People said officially: Wwll, sorry, but that's what it is. And so she went to court."
"Miss Anglin, it turned out by then was no longer in the country."
"She did not show up for trial, but the government, in fact, as you would have seen from the judgment, fully defended against the claim, saying that, well, no, you were not in occupation because there was nothing for you to occupy until we created a title number, which I thought was very neat and nice."
"All that ultimately went by the board because the judge saw right through that and at the end of the day, found that, at the very least, MS Agling held it in trust for our client."
"And there was, in fact, a proprietary estoppel created between our client and the government by virtue of the fact that the government knew of her long open position, had, in fact, given the permit for the seawall and had encouraged her to, get the lease and done everything to create the expectation, the legitimate expectation that she would have been given title, they, they obviously screwed up with that was concerned and there's no doubt that politics played a role."
"They did a thing. They made a move. They pulled a fast one. But but ultimately, it all came unstuck because the law is there to, to protect against that sort of thing."
"People who are in a similar situation and who find that at the last moment, the government is purporting to, or actually gives title to somebody else the, once they can get to court, it's a cinch that in fact, what the government did will be overturned."
"That fact of the long possession occupation, once it is up, once it is known to all the world, so to speak, it is indefeasible."
No damages were awarded but the judge ordered the Lands Department to cancel the registration and rectify the register. It is left to be seen now what compensation the state will offer to Ms. Anglin.
