Pensioner makes application to have Khemraj Ramjattan debarred for fraud commited against her
Written by
Thursday, 02 August 2012 21:29
Source - Guyana Chronicle
THE aged couple, Michael Taharally and Veronica da Silva, who accused AFC Leader, Ramjattan of cheating them and selling them out, has lodged a formal complaint against him to the Registrar of the Supreme Court under the Legal Practioner’s Act Cap.4:01. They have vowed that they will not rest until they get justice. Ms. Veronica Da Silva, in her claim, stated that the AFC Leader, without her permission, gave consent that her valuable property located in a prime part of the city and highly saleable (240 & 241 Camp Street) be sold, and that she had paid the AFC leader the agreed sum of $1M as legal fees, but he took $3M from her money, apart from what she alleges as fraudulent sale of her property for millions of dollars less than the government evaluation. His excuse that he needed to extract his fees from the sale has no merit, because she had already paid him the agreed fees of $1M.
She is accusing Ramjattan of failing to heed her instructions not to sell the property and collaborating with interested parties to sell the property below government valuation, thereby causing her to suffer severe losses. She is asking that he refund her the $3M in fees he took, and that he compensates her for $2M in losses she suffered, and she also seeks that the AFC Leader ensure that the property, which was her home before what she terms the illegal sale, be restored to her.
Asked why she is still pursuing the matter, she and her husband said that a grave injustice was done to them by Khemraj Ramjattan, whom they trusted to represent their best interests as they had paid him a hefty fee which caused them to lose the property that was willed solely to her, for which probate had already been passed, and on which she paid rates and taxes for 17 years.
So, on two grounds, she has sole legal entitlement to the property – through being named sole beneficiary in a will by the owner, who was her aunt; and also as her prescriptive right through occupancy for in excess of 17 years, while the other claimants, who were her aunt’s stepchildren, had lived for all these years out of Guyana, and their claims were being made on their behalf by a third party. She claims that Ramjattan is solely responsible for her losing her home and property.
The property at the centre of matter was willed to her by her aunt and was evaluated at $89M by the government’s evaluating officer. She says that with Ramjattan’s consent, the property was sold for $55M. She alleges and claims she suspects that the difference between the $89M and $55M was split between Ramjattan and the purchaser, whom he had found, without her knowledge and/or consent.
According to Taharally, Ramjattan had made a consent order to dispense of a property that had a government valuation for $88M. He was paid a fee of $1M.
However, against the wishes of his clients, he allegedly struck a private deal with a buyer that he had found and sold the property for in excess of $30M less than the government-evaluated price, which has many serious legal implications, not least the robbing of the treasury of revenues through reduced property-sale taxes.
The elderly couple is convinced that the difference was split after the sale, or even the legal paperwork had been finished.
Taharally, in an interview, said “The actual sale price of $55M when there should not have been that, because you can’t rob Inland Revenue and go under a value when you have a government valuation. It’s not a private valuation… the government valuation is $88M and he went under that value for $55M to be sold to a very wealthy businessman.”
Taharally posited, “And then the lawyer, Mr. Ramjattan, he never told the Judge even that ‘you know, by law, she is entitled to the property in full, because she has paid 17 years rates and taxes… all the rates and taxes are here, how can you do something like that, all the rates and taxes are here, 17 years rates and tax she paid. He only gave her a third. It’s her property, her aunt died leaving a will for her and the matter went to trial for nine and a half years and the judge made no decision, but she was granted judgment by a second judge, and the man who is fighting her came back fighting her for stepchildren share; so he is representing stepchildren who have migrated for 60 years, at the time in 1994 they were 89 and 91, who knows if they were alive; but she didn’t have a free and fair trial because the judge hadn’t sent for none of the children or nothing like that.”
The embattled elderly man reiterated “The judge just listened to one side and then he ruled, so they started bidding and they stopped at $55M and that was it $55M.”