Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A pair of sib­lings have won their case against a com­pa­ny over a new 15-year lease for a par­cel of land in St James that has been un­der their fam­i­ly’s con­trol for more than 60 years.

In a judg­ment de­liv­ered late last week, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran up­held the claim brought by Neil Karimul­lah and his sis­ter Judy Karimul­lah-Ho­sein against Jesse Hen­der­son Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed in re­la­tion to the lease.

The law­suit cen­tred on a par­cel of land along West­ern Main Road, St James.

The sib­lings’ fa­ther, Muhammed Karimul­lah, and his broth­er-in-law, Ka­malud­dim Mo­hammed, leased the land from the com­pa­ny in 1962 af­ter pur­chas­ing a chat­tel house and a build­ing on the prop­er­ty which could not be re­moved.

The two men ren­o­vat­ed the build­ing and house, es­tab­lish­ing a re­tail busi­ness in the build­ing, while Karimul­lah and his fam­i­ly lived in the house for sev­er­al decades.

Karimul­lah lat­er pur­chased Mo­hammed’s in­ter­est in the busi­ness and con­tin­ued op­er­at­ing it with mem­bers of his fam­i­ly.

He even­tu­al­ly ob­tained a 30-year statu­to­ry lease for the land un­der the Land Ten­ant Se­cu­ri­ty of Tenure Act, with rent set at $10 per month.

Af­ter Karimul­lah died in 1990, his wife and the sib­lings con­tin­ued pay­ing rent and op­er­at­ing the busi­ness.

The sib­lings’ moth­er, who was the ex­ecutrix of Karimul­lah’s es­tate, died in 1998 be­fore pro­bate of his will had been com­plet­ed.

With the statu­to­ry ten­an­cy due to ex­pire in 2011, the sib­lings ap­proached the com­pa­ny to re­new the lease or es­tab­lish a new agree­ment based on re­vised terms.

They claimed the com­pa­ny, through its rep­re­sen­ta­tives, agreed in 2009 to grant them a new 15-year lease.

How­ev­er, they said the process could not be com­plet­ed while they were deal­ing with the set­tle­ment of their par­ents’ es­tates.

The pro­bate process was pro­longed due to sev­er­al is­sues en­coun­tered by the sib­lings.

In 2023, the com­pa­ny wrote to them stat­ing that it was no longer will­ing to en­ter in­to a new lease and in­stead of­fered them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pur­chase the land at its then mar­ket val­ue.

Through their at­tor­neys, Yaseen Ahmed and Tara Lutch­man, the sib­lings filed a claim seek­ing to up­hold the of­fer of the lease.

De­liv­er­ing an oral judg­ment last week, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran ruled in favour of the sib­lings based on the le­gal prin­ci­ple of pro­pri­etary estop­pel.

His de­ci­sion was based on re­peat­ed as­sur­ances made by the com­pa­ny re­gard­ing the new lease.

“The Court is sat­is­fied that there was held out to the claimants that had they done what was nec­es­sary to reg­u­larise the po­si­tion of the es­tate of Muhammed Karimul­lah and Afza Karimul­lah, that there would be the grant of a lease for a term of years,” he said.

Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran said the sib­lings act­ed to their detri­ment based on those as­sur­ances, as they did not seek to en­force their claim to the lease ear­li­er while at­tempt­ing to com­plete the pro­bate process.

He di­rect­ed the par­ties to hold dis­cus­sions on the new lease, which would take ef­fect af­ter com­ple­tion of the pro­bate process for their fa­ther’s es­tate.

The val­ue of the new lease will be agreed by the par­ties, with a val­u­a­tion of the prop­er­ty serv­ing as a guide.

De­spite rul­ing in favour of the sib­lings on the lease is­sue, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran found that the com­pa­ny was en­ti­tled to re­ceive rent for part of the pe­ri­od dur­ing which the lease re­mained un­re­solved.

While the com­pa­ny sought pay­ment of the full amount of rent out­stand­ing since 2009, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran agreed with the sib­lings’ at­tor­neys that, un­der the Lim­i­ta­tion of Cer­tain Ac­tions Act, the com­pa­ny could on­ly claim rent for the four years be­fore the fil­ing of the case in 2023.

The to­tal rent payable was as­sessed at $118,000.

The com­pa­ny was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Ear­la Ny­ack.