Judge grants injunction by phone

Justice Eleanor Donaldson- Honeywell granted the emergency injunction in the unusual form on Friday in a claim of trespass brought by Glenford Grant against couple Arnan and Vashti Bassin.

Attorneys for Grant, Kelvin Ramkissoon and Sonya Gyan, approached the court for the emergency order after he complained that the Bassins’ were encroaching on his property at 40 Don Miguel Road, San Juan.

Justice Donaldson-Honeywell, who was on a retreat for judges and magistrates, granted the injunction by telephone from where she was located.

As part of her order, the Bassins were warned that if they fail to obey the court’s order they will forced to do so and will be found guilty of contempt. They were also warned that they can be sent to prison, fined or their assets seized.

According to Grant, the couple lives at LP 55 Braithwaite Lane, El Socorro but occasionally occupy a house on a piece of land which is located south of his property on Don Miguel Road.

In his claim, Grant said the house on the property was built by his father and was the family’s home.

He and his brother now share the house.

He said the lands which he occupy and which is cousin occupies to the west were originally leased to his grandfather since 1912 while the Bassins’ occupied a third parcel of land at the same address.

Grant said he and his cousin paid an annual rent to his aunt in whose name the tenancy of the parcels of land was passed on, through a real estate agency. Steps were also made for the purchase of the parcels of land and Grant said he made several repairs and improvements to the house he lived in.

According to Grant, when the Bassins’ moved to Braithwaite Lane, they occasionally visited 40 Don Miguel Road to maintain the house there but in 2012, they claimed they were the new owners of the lands and served them with a lawyer’s letter claiming they (the Bassins) have been forced to undertake extensive renovations on Grant’s house.

Grant said they also threatened to remove the iron gate at the front of his property and in 2016, they deposited a load of gravel to the entrance of the property, blocking him from using the garage to park his car.

He said they began doing work on their house on the parcel of land they occupied and dumped building maters in his garage space, telling him the property belonged to then.

Grant also said in November, the water supply was cut to his house and he was told by the Water and Sewerage Authority that the bill for his house was now in Vashti Bassin’s name.

Since then he has had no water supply to his home.

In March, the Bassins ordered, by letter, to move out of the house he occupied and hand it over to the Bassins and on May 9, four men came to his house to put him out, two of them claiming to be police officers. The men neither provided a warrant nor court order but forced themselves into his house.

They removed household and personal items and left them on the side of the road. Grant reported the incident to the police and although a policeman from the Barataria Police Station accompanied him to the house while the four men were still inside, the policeman refused to take the name of the four.

On Friday, when the injunction was granted, Grant said he was at his lawyer’s office when he received a telephone call informing him that the Bassins’ were demolishing his house. An emergency stop order was sought and granted by Justice Donaldson-Honeywell, restricting the Bassins’ from taking any action on Grant’s property until the matter is resolved at trial or until further ordered.

The matter comes up for hearing on Wednesday at the Port of Spain High Court.