A Not So Hypothetical Tenancy Issue In Trinidad and Tobago

Let's say that you have a tenant who is occupying a lot of land and some agricultural land as well. Let us then say that the tenant flies back and forth to New York from Trinidad all the time, and has recently upgraded a house on your land from a wooden structure to a concrete mansion.

Let's say that the rent for the house lot is $532 TT per year - roughly $88 US dollars/year. Pretty good, huh? And let's say that the rent is controlled by an assessment board that doesn't deal with the value of the land itself but rather with the amount of money a tenant claims in taxes. Suddenly, being in agriculture is an outstanding benefit.

So here's the problem: To get the water connection through WASA to their new structure, they need to show that they've paid a house tax to the government - a real pittance, but something that requires an assessment number which would... come with the land. Since they haven't actually paid taxes on the land (since they don't own it), they come to the person who owns the land - you - to write a letter that you have paid the taxes.

If you give them the letter, they might still pay rent or might not. Evicting someone with a concrete house on one's land is not something that can be easily done in Trinidad and Tobago, especially if they're a tenant. And people have a tendency to not pay rent for years, instead flying back and forth to the United States while reporting no taxes in Trinidad and Tobago and perhaps even no taxes in the United States - working under the table or what have you.

Meanwhile you're still trying to sell them the land at a pittance so you don't have to deal with a tenancy - selling a lot of land to a tenant in Trinidad and Tobago requires that you offer them half of the market price to purchase; being interested in selling you've gone down to 25% of the market price ($40,000 TT; roughly $6,666 US). They balk and say that they don't know when they will buy - but they've built this huge mansion of concrete.

Do you give them the letter?

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