Raphael John-Lall

Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tion Ronald Heer­alal said "vul­tures" pre­tend­ing to be prop­er­ty val­u­a­tors are tak­ing ad­van­tage of peo­ple who are be­ing re­lo­cat­ed from the route of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin high­way."There are vul­tures out there who will go on site and promise peo­ple more than the qual­i­fied val­u­a­tors," Heer­alal told the T&T Guardian.Heer­alal said the In­sti­tute of Sur­vey­ors had a list of qual­i­fied val­u­a­tors and when claimants put in their claim with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, they were giv­en the list.

He spoke to the Guardian yes­ter­day on the sec­ond day of the Roy­al In­sti­tu­tion of Char­tered Sur­vey­ors (RICS) Con­fer­ence on Val­u­a­tion and Con­struc­tion at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain."In the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin high­way there are a lot of the lengthy ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­ods be­cause you have un­qual­i­fied peo­ple who do not know the rights of the claimants and as a re­sult it per­pet­u­ates the time it takes to reach a set­tle­ment," he said."Nine of ten times claimants, or peo­ple whose prop­er­ty are be­ing ac­quired, may take un­qual­i­fied peo­ple who are not aware of the law to ne­go­ti­ate on their be­half. So if you take an ac­coun­tant or an en­gi­neer to do a ne­go­ti­a­tion it will pro­long the time it takes to reach an ear­ly set­tle­ment."

"There are firms with qual­i­fied val­u­a­tors who are trained to in­ter­pret and ap­ply the reg­u­la­tions un­der the law."Heer­alal said the law clear­ly guid­ed the state on mat­ters of com­pen­sa­tion."The main is­sue is com­pul­so­ry ac­qui­si­tion like the high­way from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin and the is­sue aris­ing out of pay­ment for com­pen­sa­tion.""What is fair com­pen­sa­tion? Fair com­pen­sa­tion is writ­ten in the Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act.""The Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tion will ne­go­ti­ate the com­pen­sa­tion on be­half of the state. There is le­gal re­course for ar­bi­tra­tion if an agree­ment with the state can­not be reached," he said.