Brathwaite v Jones et Al

• Jurisdiction: Barbados
• Court: High Court (Barbados)
• Judge: Husbands, J.
• Judgment Date: 26 June 1979
• Neutral Citation: BB 1979 HC 27
• Docket Number: No. 199 of 1978
• Date: 26 June 1979

High Court

Husbands, J.

No. 199 of 1978

Brathwaite

and

Jones et al

Mr. J. C. King for the plaintiff and the defendant.

Mr. W. O. O. Haynes and Mr. O. E. Moseley for the claimant.

Real property - Title

Husbands, J.

1 The claimant Hazel Griffith and the defendant Ermie Jones own adjacent lots of land at Vauxhall, Christ Church. The southern boundary of the defendant's land runs along the northern boundary of the claimant's. The defendant by foreclosure action is seeking title to an area of 5 385 square feet; the claimant claims that 908 square feet of this land north of the common boundary is hers.

2 According to the claimant, the area of 908 square feet claimed forms part of the 20 perches or 5 445 square feet of land formerly owned and occupied by her late father who died in 1970. In his will he provided inter alia as follows -

“I give devise and bequeath my twenty perches of land at Vauxhall, Christ Church, in this island to my daughter the said Hazel Griffith for her own use absolutely,”

3 Apart from this general description no reference was made in the will to a surveyor's plan or to contiguous boundaries from which the exact site area of the land bequeathed might be ascertained.

4 In support of her claim the claimant produced a surveyor's plan dated 15 ^th June, 1970 and a registrar's conveyance dated 4 ^th December, 1974, both of which refer to an area of 4 537 square feet of land at Vauxhall, Christ Church. A notation made by the surveyor on the plan is of interest and may be mentioned here. It reads as follows – “I had no old plan to guide me in making this survey and marks were placed by mutual concept of the adjacent owners.”

5 One of the adjacent owners named on the plan is Ermie Jones the defendant, whose land is shown abutting and bounding on the claimant's northern boundary, the area presently under dispute.

6 The claimant states that the 908 square feet claimed and not included in the plan or conveyance is situate on the northern boundary of her land as shown on the surveyor's plan and has been wrongly included in the 5 385 square feet of land to which the Defendant is now seeking title. She alleges further that the 908 square feet was cultivated by her father and had been in his undisputed and peaceable possession as owner during his lifetime. After his death her solicitors rented the 908 square feet to a tenant as part of a 60 x 40 house spot. The tenant dug groundsels...