DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A dis­abled man is thank­ful that he has a home again af­ter suc­cess­ful­ly ap­peal­ing a pre­vi­ous court rul­ing fol­low­ing a dis­pute over ac­cess to his de­ceased step­moth­er’s prop­er­ty near Store Bay in To­ba­go. 

The case of Sean Moses was high­light­ed by the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty (LAAA) in a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

Moses ex­pressed grat­i­tude to­wards LAAA for tak­ing his ap­peal for­ward and help­ing him to re­ceive a favourable out­come last week.

Moses said, “I thank the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty be­cause with­out them I would have been with­out a home. I am liv­ing on dis­abil­i­ty ben­e­fits and I am par­tial­ly blind.”

Moses, who is an am­putee, was named as the ex­ecu­tor of his step­moth­er’s will. 

He and oth­er rel­a­tives were al­so named as ben­e­fi­cia­ries of her es­tate which in­clud­ed a one-acre par­cel of land near Store Bay with a small wood­en house used by Moses. In 2019, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran ruled that the will had been tam­pered with af­ter it was ex­e­cut­ed to the ex­clu­sion of named ben­e­fi­cia­ries. 

The judge up­held the orig­i­nal will and ruled that those named on it would ben­e­fit. 

Al­though Moses was among those who stood to ben­e­fit and was not found to have en­gaged in the fraud, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran grant­ed an in­junc­tion bar­ring him ac­cess to the prop­er­ty he lived on. 

Moses was on­ly able to chal­lenge the out­come with the as­sis­tance of the LAAA, who ap­point­ed Asha Watkins-Montserin, and le­gal of­fi­cer Javier For­rester to rep­re­sent him in an ap­peal. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment last week, Ap­pel­late Judges Maria Wil­son, Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, and Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son par­tial­ly up­held Moses’ ap­peal and dis­charged the in­junc­tion. 

They ruled that Moses was a valid ben­e­fi­cia­ry in the will and had a vest­ed in­ter­est in the land.

They al­so ruled that he was en­ti­tled to ac­cess. 

They al­so var­ied Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran’s de­ci­sion to or­der Moses to pay $14,000 in le­gal costs for the orig­i­nal law­suit. They al­so de­clared that two of Moses’ rel­a­tives had an eq­ui­table in­ter­est in a house left to them by Moses’ step­moth­er on part of the par­cel of land. 

In its re­lease, the LAAA not­ed that it was es­tab­lished to pro­vide le­gal ser­vices and rep­re­sen­ta­tion to peo­ple of small to mod­er­ate means.