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The reportage in MaltaToday last week on the land scandal has shaken the lid off the usually secretive Church authorities.
This newspaper can now reveal that discrete investigations are being carried out by Church authorities in relation to allegations that certain lawyers representing deceased individuals, who left their property to the Catholic Church, changed the wills.
Allegations made in MaltaToday suggest that lawyers representing deceased individuals who parted with their property and left it to the Catholic Church have changed the wills.
Most of the cases refer to people with no relative or very distant relatives. The allegations have stirred a flurry of interest and the Church authorities are keen to uncover any fraudulent links in the allegations.
The illegal changes to the wills have favoured other individuals who then proceeded to sell the land at great profit.
The Church authorities are now looking closely at the style of life of some of the executors of Church inheritances.
With no pressure from the Home Affairs ministry to address these allegations, the Church has been left with little or no urgency to address the serious matter of the role of legal officers and their responsibilities.
The latest revelations came after MaltaToday’s serialisation, based on court proceedings, of government owned land at Ta’ l-Ibragg that was sold to third persons by individuals who pretended they had a legal ‘title’ to the land. The scandal reveals the inappropriate behaviour of notaries who failed to sound the alarm bells and ensure in their researches that land sold and covered by numerous bank loans was not private land after all.
MaltaToday’s report on the selling of apartments built on government-owned land in Ta’ l-Ibragg featured earlier this week in Parliament, throughout the debate on the transfer of government land to sporting and scouts’ associations.
Minister for Home Affairs and Justice Tonio Borg, referring to various points made by MPs on the abusive development on land owned by the government, told Parliament the Joint Office had already taken the necessary legal steps with regards to the parties involved in the case brought against Terra Mediterranea, the company which sold apartments on government-owned land. MaltaToday reported this fact in its initial reports on the case.
Earlier on, throughout the debate on the bill, for the transfer of government properties, Opposition spokesperson for justice Anglu Farrugia urged Parliament to set up an independent board headed by a judge and a representative from both sides of the House, to investigate abusive development of public land in the last 20 years.
He said tough action should be taken against perpetrators who abusively take over property, even building hotels on government-owned land.
Minister Tonio Borg presented a list of 25 court cases concerning government property, which featured both individuals and companies such as Polidano Bros Ltd, Angelo Xuereb (Suncrest), and Solemar Ltd, the latter concerning the construction of the former Solemar Hotel, now Riviera Hotel, of which part of the hotel was built on government-owned land.
One of these cases was that of Raymond Aquilina, director of Terra Mediterranea, which sold houses on land owned by the government, in an area known as l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu, in Ta’ l-Ibragg. Residents of Triq Wied Mejxu, who purchased apartments from Terra Mediterranea, today are suing Raymond Aquilina, after being informed by the Lands Department the land on which their houses stood, was transferred from the Church to the state in 2003, as part of the Church-State agreement.
President of the College of Notaries Dr Victor J Bisazza has written to MaltaToday on the legal conundrums that surround the law sanctioning the transfer of Church property (see page 21).
In its reports, MaltaToday revealed how Spiteri Holdings, whose director is Domenico Savio Spiteri, sold land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu to Terra Mediterranea, claiming the land had originated from an inheritance Spiteri purchased in 1996.
Terra Mediterranea had already built the houses on this land when it purchased the land from Spiteri Holdings in July 2002. It was exactly nine days later that Terra Mediterranea signed a promise-of-sale agreement (konvenju) with the buyers for the houses in Triq Wied Mejxu, Ta’ l-Ibragg.
MaltaToday has revealed how the inheritance Spiteri Holdings claimed was the source of it having acquired the land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu, in reality consisted of two fields located outside the development zone in another area in Ta’ l-Ibragg.
The inheritance was entrusted to testamentary executors who were members of the clergy by siblings Paolo and Tereza Xuereb in 1826.
In 1996, Spiteri Holdings purchased the inheritance from executor Fr Renato Valente, who was appointed by the Second Hall of the Civil Court to take over the duties of former executor Fr Rafel Gauci. A court expert valued the contents of the will at Lm7,000.
However, as Court documents reveal, the contents of the Xuereb inheritance consisted of two fields located 775 meters away from l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu, in an area known as Tal-Franciz.
When Spiteri Holdings sold the land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu to Terra Mediterranea, it claimed in the contract of sale that the land originated from the Xuereb inheritance. According to a writ filed by the lawyers of residents who are suing Terra Mediterranea, Spiteri sold the land, an area covering seven tumoli, for hundreds of thousands of liri.
MaltaToday revealed how two contracts of sale exist of the sale of the Xuereb inheritance. One of these, deposited with the Court on execution of the will, includes the contents of this inheritance, as well as the important condition that there was no peaceful possession on the land, meaning other parties could have claims of ownership on the land, making this a ‘dangerous’ acquisition.
The second copy, deposited as the deed of purchase with the public registry, neither contains the contents of the inheritance, nor the important clause that there was no peaceful possession of the land. Notaries who performed searches on the property sold by Terra Mediterranea were allegedly misled into assuming the Xuereb inheritance cited by Spiteri Holdings in the contract of sale, automatically referred to the land at l-Ghalqa ta’ Giakondu, especially since neither the contents nor the fact that there was no peaceful possession of the land, had been noted in the second deed of purchase.
Notary Anthony Abela, who drew up both contracts, told MaltaToday that the above premise was “incorrect.” but did not comment any further.
Last week HSBC Bank Malta Ltd declined to comment on the case, saying the bank does not discuss with third parties matters which involve customers or which are the object of current lawsuits. Advocate Ethelbert Fenech Adami had appeared on behalf of the bank for the contract of sale of land between Spiteri Holdings Ltd and Terra Mediterranea on 15 July, 2002, for two plots of land at Triq Wied Mejxu, where Spiteri Holdings claimed that the land had originated from the Xuereb inheritance and carried the guarantee of peaceful possession.
In a comment to MaltaToday this week, Dr Eric Mamo said HSBC’s lawyers vetted official searches ordered from the Public Registry by customers’ notaries: “The bank does not order searches itself. It is the customer’s notary’s duty to provide searches.”
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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