A Supreme Court judge has rejected claims that Juliet Holness’ real estate company bullied a St Andrew landowner in a land title dispute, ruling instead that the defendant failed to appreciate that the company was entitled to an eight-metre wide access road.
Justice David Batts, who ruled in favour of JAJ Development and Holdings yesterday, said the title delivered by Charlene Ashley in December 2022 did not comply with the parties’ 2012 sales agreement, as it reflected only a three-metre wide road, instead of the agreed eight metres.
Ashley had sold a portion of her land in Leas Flat, St Andrew, to JAJ, which sued for the title. The company is building an apartment complex on the property.
“The allegations of intimidation and ‘bullying’ have also not been proven to the requisite standards,” the judge wrote.
“I find that the defendant’s upset and apparent tirade resulted from her failure to appreciate that the claimant was entitled to an 8-metre wide road.”
At the same time, Ashley, who counter-sued for trespass and the destruction of concrete structures, was awarded $1 million in damages.
The judge said the trespass claim was due to Ashley’s “erroneous belief” about the width of the road due to JAJ. He said what JAJ did “cannot … be called trespass” because the agreement allowed JAJ to use the portion of the land for which Ashley claimed violation.
He said the trespass allegation “may have been better phrased as a breach of contract not to destroy concrete structures”.
Justice Batts disclosed that the parties agreed at a meeting in his chambers on April 10 that “a stamped agreement for sale must be produced before this decision becomes enforceable”.
Ashley will have 90 days to provide the title.
Holness, who was in court, declined to comment.
‘SPEAKS VOLUMES’
“The court’s decision speaks for itself,” attorney Rose Bennett-Cooper told The Gleaner, adding that it “speaks volumes”. She represented JAJ.
Both women hugged in celebration of the judgment.
Ashley’s lead attorney, John Clarke, told The Gleaner that he had to speak with his client before commenting. Ashley was not in court.
JAJ’s 2020 lawsuit sought a court order to compel Ashley, a marketing consultant, to deliver the splintered title for JAJ’s portion of the land. The company purchased Lot Two for $22 million in 2012, while Ashley resides on Lot One. A witness had said about $800 million was spent so far on the incomplete development.
Under the agreement, JAJ was to receive a title and Ashley would get an apartment as part-payment. The title was requested in October 2012.
Ashley counter-sued, alleging that JAJ trespassed and damaged structures on her property. She argued that she could not deliver the title due to subdivision issues, including the removal of her current gateway to allow for the access road.
JAJ denied the trespass claims and rejected the title delivered in December 2022, saying it did not conform with the sales agreement.
Ashley and Holness traded allegations of dishonesty during the trial, which began in May 2023.
The judge determined JAJ’s lawsuit on the basis of whether the title Ashley delivered complied with a previous judge’s order that her defence would be struck out and JAJ granted judgment unless she produced a title in conformity with the sales agreement.
‘NOT IN CONFORMITY’
Justice Batts said that based on the agreement, Ashley was to provide an eight-metre wide road, but the title delivered “was only a three-metre wide road reservation”. “It therefore is not in conformity with the contract and materially different to that which was promised by the agreement,” he wrote in a 21-page opinion.
He also noted that Ashley contradicted her own evidence on whether an eight-metre wide road had been agreed. Batts enforced the order of the previous judge, agreeing with Bennett-Cooper’s arguments at the start of the trial.
Batts further stated that changes to agreements between JAJ and Ashley over the property’s subdivision “did not affect” Ashley’s obligation to deliver a title for Lot Two with an eight-metre wide road. He said it was Ashley’s rejection of a subdivision approval, claiming that it would result in the removal of her current gateway for a shared one that caused the delay in delivering the title.
The judge rejected Ashley’s claim that delivering the agreed-width title would damage her home and restrict access to Lot One. “Neither of these extraordinary contentions [was] borne out by the evidence,” he said.
Based on testimony from two JAJ witnesses, Batts concluded that the road contemplated by the agreement “is workable and therefore possible, provided the zinc fence erected on it by the defendant (Ashley) is removed”.
Regarding Ashley’s counterclaim, Batts noted her allegations of trespass and that JAJ failed to complete construction within 36 months and provide her with a townhouse.
But he said the time for JAJ to perform its obligations “did not arise until and unless” Ashley provided the title.
Batts accepted that JAJ damaged Ashley’s terraces in breach of the sales agreement, but said a doghouse in the path of the access road was not a concrete structure and was lawfully removed by JAJ.
MAJOR ORDERS IN JAJ VS ASHLEY:
Major orders in Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, handed down by Justice David Batts:
1. The defendant (Charlene Ashley) is ordered to, within 90 days, deliver up to the claimant (JAJ Development and Holdings) a registered title for Lot Two of the Leas Flat, St Andrew, property.
2. The Registrar of Titles is directed to call in the duplicate certificates of title.
3. The Registrar of Titles is further directed to consider whether the title or titles are authorised to be cancelled and replaced.
4. If Ashley fails or refuses to execute any documentation necessary to give effect to the orders, the Registrar of the Supreme Court is authorised to execute the documentation on JAJ’s behalf.
5. Damages of $1 million to be paid to Ashley on her countersuit.
6. Ashley to pay two-thirds of JAJ’s legal fees.