|
Matthew Vella
Much bad faith has poured out of court evidence MaltaToday has seen in the alleged case of wrongful trading against property dealers Terra Mediterranea Ltd, and the unbelievable and curious manner in which large tracts of government land in Ta’ l-Ibragg were acquired by Spiteri Holdings Ltd.
The case refers to the purchase of property by young couples and other families in the area of Triq Wied Mejxu, Ta’ l-Ibragg, from the company Terra Mediterranea, whose proprietor is Raymond Aquilina. Aquilina allegedly sold property on land that was state-owned, and which was originally acquired, in circumstances of a dubious nature, by Spiteri Holdings, whose proprietor is Gozitan Domenico Savio Spiteri.
MaltaToday has been libelled for reporting court proceedings, proceedings which have been described as vexatious by MaltaToday.
MaltaToday can now confirm how Spiteri Holdings purchased the inheritance of siblings Paolo and Tereza Xuereb – an inheritance of which the contents are dubiously vague – in full knowledge that the company ran the risk of purchasing land without the guarantee of peaceful possession, the surety that no other claims of ownership on the land existed.
The land, located in the area of Tal-Franciz, and comprising of two plots, was purchased by Spiteri Holdings for Lm7,000, risks and all consequences included.
A mysterious conundrum has, however, emerged as land located less than a kilometre away from the Tal-Franciz plots acquired by Spiteri Holdings, was sold by the latter with the claim that the land originated from the Xuereb inheritance. The area, namely l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu, a tract of land of seven tumoli, was sold to individuals and companies including Terra Mediterranea for hundreds and thousands of liri, a far cry from the value of the two deserted plots of land acquired for Lm7,000 through the Xuereb inheritance.
But as evidence seen by MaltaToday confirms, the land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu was transferred to the State from the Maltese Church through the 1992 Church-State agreement. Contracts between Spiteri Holdings and the executor of the Xuereb inheritance, Fr Renato Valente, confirm the Xuereb inheritance did not include the land known as l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu but two plots of land at Tal-Franciz.
The sale of state-owned land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu occurred nevertheless, even outwitting HSBC Bank representatives appearing on behalf of the bank for the contract of sale between Spiteri Holdings and buyers Terra Mediterranea – where two plots of land off l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakombu in Triq Wied Mejxu were sold to Terra Mediterranea on the warranty of peaceful possession, declaring that Spiteri Holdings “acquired the property… from the ‘Eredita’ Gjacenti tar-Reverendu Paolo u Tereza ahwa Xuereb’ by virtue of a deed published by Notary Anthony Abela on 5 August, 1996, as authorised by the Second Hall Civil Court decree (941/1996).”
As this newspaper reveals, Spiteri Holdings purchased a mere two fields from an inheritance for Lm7,000 and then proceeded to sell off nearby land on the claim that these very lands originated from the Xuereb inheritance – guaranteeing peaceful possession on land which was state-owned, unfolding the tragic saga of unlucky buyers who would be misled into buying land that nobody but the government owned.
The Xuereb inheritance
The inheritance of the seminarian Paolo Xuereb and his sister Tereza was in 1826 bestowed upon a testamentary executor, who was awarded the faculty to choose the successors of that will. In April 1996, Reverend Renato Valente was appointed by the Second Hall of the Civil Court to substitute former executor Fr Rafel Gauci, and to take in his hands the administration of the will.
Two months later, in July, Valente presented a writ to the Second Hall of the Civil Court to obtain permission to dispose of the inheritance, having found a buyer – Domenico Savio Spiteri, a former partner of Valente’s in another company.
In his writ, Valente said that for some time prior to being appointed executor, he had attempted to collect information in connection with the Xuereb inheritance “in order to be in a position to administer better and eventually finalise [the sale of the inheritance]…” fearing the land would be dissipated “because in the past this very inheritance was left abandoned and documents related to the inventory of assets have been lost.”
Valente conceded that no list of assets had been found then which could document the exact contents of the Xuereb inheritance, save for some properties which were tied by a rent of Lm20 a year.
Valente said he had a “favourable occasion” to sell this inheritance for Lm4,000. As Valente told MaltaToday: “I was only interested in getting rid of this responsibility and sold it according to the value given by the court expert to a person I knew would have taken it, with rights, obligations, risks and all.”
In fact, according to Valente’s writ, he had found a buyer who was “ready to accept that he recognises that these very properties are being leased, and since these payments have for years never been collected, it is probable that these are no longer in force or are about to be proscribed and lost for good, but whoever is interested is ready to exempt the testamentary executor from the guarantee of peaceful possession…”
Asked by the Court to provide any form of documents that could confirm any ownership of the land, Valente returned to the Court saying he had been unable to provide any such documents or evidence – in fact, the land in question was likely to be a risky investment.
In August 1996, Architect Rene Buttigieg, appointed as court expert, declared that according to his survey and the contract of sale that was to be made between Valente and Spiteri Holdings by Notary Anthony Abela, the Xuereb inheritance contained two plots of land at Tal-Franciz, each measuring approximately 31 square metres (“sieghan u erbgha kejliet… sieghan u tmien kejliet”)
Buttigieg said both plots were outside the development scheme and therefore not possible to be developed upon, but speculated on the possibilities of having one of the plots included in the development zone in an upcoming revision of the Malta development scheme:
“There is no guarantee that these pieces of land will be included in the scheme in the near future, although one must not exclude this possibility… However [I] believe that it would be equal and just, to have the value of this agricultural land doubled if this land will be included in the development scheme within the next five years…”
Buttigieg consequently declared that in his opinion, the two plots of land carried a value of Lm7,000 – one valued at Lm3,000 and the other at Lm4,000.
One notary, two contracts
Following the valuation of the land, the two parties – testamentary executor Renato Valente and Spiteri Holdings – met before Notary Anthony Abela to sign the contract of sale, which as required by law would be presented to the Court of Voluntary Jurisdiction.
From court documents seen by MaltaToday, two contracts of this sale exist – one, which according to legal sources, was presented to the Court, containing the description of the land included in the Xuereb inheritance; and a second, re-written contract, identified as the deed of purchase, this time without the description of the land imparted from the inheritance.
In the first contract, allegedly a draft of the actual contract but nevertheless presented to the Court as the contract of sale, the assets are described as “the inheritance of Paolo and Tereza Xuereb, siblings, with assets and debts, movables and immovables, amongst them some portions situated in the limits of Tal-Franciz in the area of Swieqi, Malta, not specified because the property list is dispersed and therefore the property cannot be specifically identified… including any credit, action, or claim or any other rights in favour and/or against the inheritance.”
The contract also read that the buyer had recognised the fact that the property was subject to claims of other titles of ownership, entailing the risk that “the acquirer might not have any legal title on the property. For this reason, the buyer is exempting the seller from the guarantee of peaceful possession…”
Spiteri Holdings had purchased two plots of land outside the development scheme for Lm7,000 without the surety of peaceful possession.
However, in the second, revised contract of sale, dated 5 August, 1996, which has been lodged at the public registry, the description of the land in the Xuereb inheritance is unexplainably not included:
“… the seller sells, assigns and transfers in favour of the buying company, which accepts, buys and acquires: the inheritance of ‘Paolo and Teresa Xuereb, siblings, with all assets and debts, movables and immovables, all included and nothing excluded, including any credit, action, claim, or any other right in favour and/or against the inheritance, for the combined sum of Lm7,000…”
The discrepancy gives rise to serious allegations. According to legal sources, the revised contract excludes the details of the property with the possible aim of keeping such description ambivalent and vague. Without knowing what sort of land is included in the Xuereb inheritance, it would seem that Spiteri Holdings allegedly managed to sell nearby tracts of land, claiming these had originated from the acquisition of the Xuereb inheritance. When buyers’ notaries would eventually check upon the deed of sale posted at the registry, there would be no dirty laundry to indicate the assets of the Xuereb inheritance included two fields measuring just 31 square metres, one of them filled with prickly pear trees, located outside the development scheme.
Selling l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu
Within the next years, Spiteri Holdings proceeded to start selling plots of land off another larger tract of land, situated just 775 metres away from the plots he acquired in the Xuereb inheritance. The area is known as l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu, overlooking Wied Mejxu – the valley beneath Pedidalwett Road and ‘Mystique’ building.
Since 1965, as documents seen by MaltaToday can confirm, farmers on l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu paid rent on perpetual lease (qbiela) to the Maltese Archdiocese of Lm2.00 a year. The land was in fact owned by the Church but would be later passed on to the State following the 1992 Church-State agreement.
However, on 15 July 2002, two plots forming part of the land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu, namely plots 18 and 19 overlooking Triq Wied Mejxu, were sold to Raymond Aquilina’s company Terra Mediterranea.
According to the contract of sale signed in the presence of HSBC Bank Malta representative Dr Ethelbert Fenech Adami, Terra Mediterranea obtained a loan of Lm97,000 – Lm30,000 in payment of part of the purchase price of the two plots of land (a further Lm6,000 was paid on the final settlement) and Lm67,000 for the payment of architects, contractors and masons to construct work on the two plots. The security offered to the bank included a special hypothec upon the two plots of land and the developments which would be built on the land – no form of alarm bells had apparently been raised by the bank forking out the loan and overseeing the contract of sale on the land on which an unlawful sale was about to be finalised.
A further calumny appeared on the contract of sale: the land, which clearly was not owned by Spiteri Holdings, was being sold to Terra Mediterranea with the surety of peaceful possession.
Additionally, in the same contract, it was declared that “the vendor acquired the property above mentioned from the ‘Eredita’ Gjacenti tar-Reverendu Paolo u Tereza ahwa Xuereb’, by virtue of a deed published by Notary Anthony Abela on the 5 August 1996, as authorised by the Second Hall of the Civil Court decree numbered 941/1996.”
Questions on this dubious sale remain unanswered as far as current evidence suggests: was Raymond Aquilina, an experienced property dealer, not properly informed by his notaries that the land in question did not belong to Spiteri Holdings, with whom Aquilina had already conducted property business in the past, as previous Court cases reveal?
And did the HSBC representatives assert themselves of the rightful claims to ownership of the land being sold? How could Spiteri Holdings succeed in passing off land owned by the Church, soon to be transferred to the State, as having been acquired through the Xuereb inheritance – of which the sole assets were two desolate fields located a kilometre away from Triq Wied Mejxu?
It was evident, as legal sources have pointed out, that notaries should make purchasers aware that land sold without peaceful possession is land over which the title is either defective or doubtful, and for that reason a risky investment.
In the case of the Xuereb inheritance, it seemed that no form of apprehension had been signalled when the land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakombu, in its vastness valued at hundreds of thousands of liri, had allegedly originated from an inheritance that had merely cost Lm7,000.
Buyers for plot 18 and 19
The unlucky buyers for plots 18 and 19 located in Triq Wied Mejxu would soon learn that the land they were standing on was owned by the state. As documents seen by MaltaToday confirm, the land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu had been registered by the Joint Office in 2003, subsequently registering the land at plots 18 and 19 as property of the State. According to a letter from the Government Property Division to relatives of the farmers who had previously worked the land, the division had commenced procedures against the directors of Terra Mediterranea.
It had only been a year since young couples had moved into the apartments and houses built by Terra Mediterranea that it was learnt from officials at the Lands Department that the houses had been built over land owned by the State.
Baffled, the owners asked their notaries to review the searches they had previously conducted on the land, only to confirm their worst fears. Today, having sued Raymond Aquilina for having sold them property with the guarantee of peaceful possession, when it had resulted that the land belonged to State, the owners contend their notary had set their minds at rest by indicating in the contract of sale that the property being sold carried the guarantee of peaceful possession, never being informed of any underlying risks.
In a letter to MaltaToday, Elton and Cheryll Penza describe the ordeal they face: “We cannot see how or where we got it wrong, but wrong it is as towards the end of last year we were given the fright of our lives when we were officially informed by the Lands Department that the maisonette we ‘purchased’ from Terra Mediterranea was built upon Government land and that therefore ‘our’ maisonette was ours no longer but was the property of the Government of Malta.”
matthew@newsworksltd.com
|
