Home Squatters may catch a break, but not illegal businesses on Crown Land

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, December 15, 2022 – Unlawful Settlements have been a major source of discussion in the Turks and Caicos over the past years with Premier Washington Misick promising that millions will be allocated to deal with them under the new recommendations homeowners are to be offered leniency and benefits.

The government has agreed to take very specific and humane steps to renovating, removing or regularizing these settlements.

Thus, it was recommended the government put in place a system where residential squatters on Crown Land may be offered a license or tenancy of the property or substitute property no matter their nationality or a free hold of the property if the person is a TCI Islander.

Citizens in this position may be granted a payment plan and must be afforded an islander discount and write off of arrears.

Residents no matter their nationality may no longer be prosecuted for holding unauthorized Crown Land for residential purposes. While acknowledging the significant problems caused by illegal occupation of Crown Land and the need to curb it, the report urged caution in how homes built illegally on state owned land were to be treated.

“Because the land is being used as a home this is sufficient reason for the government to take a more sensitive approach,” said the Crown Land Report made public on December 8, 2022.

It also holds the Government to preparing a written policy on its approach to informal settlements and assessing individually, each unauthorized settlement to decide what is the most appropriate action.

The Government will also be required to update laws to allow them to take action against squatters on private land and allow them to carry out upgrades in informal settlements where compliance with normal standards may be impractical.

The report offers no leniency on unauthorized commercial properties on Crown Land.

If owners knowingly occupied it for commercial purposes, that will remain a criminal offense. The report said in this case they saw no reason why the government should not act just as a private landowner would in recovering its land.

Overseeing some of these functions will be a housing entity entity set up in the Ministry of Physical Planning and Infrastructure Development and the Crown Land Unit will hand over control of “subdivided pieces of residential crown land” to the Housing Entity.

As the lottery system is to be disbanded a new Housing Points Board will be set up and help purchasing Wilbur according to the recommendation that a civil servant in the housing entity will apply .15 to a particular crownland allocation and come to a provisional decision. That decision will be forwarded to the housing point board which will then review the decision and either confirm or change it