Many of us thought that the Church in Malta had transferred all its property to the government but believe it or not the Church still retained the right to redeem the emphyteusis and to convert temporary emphyteusis into a perpetual one.

In effect, there are many Catholics in Malta who are very concerned about the way the Church is valuating the conversion, as it tends to be on the high side.

I have had cases of clients who were informed that they have to pay about Lm40,000 if they want their emphyteusis to be converted into a perpetual one. The point is not if the value is synonymous with the property but the point is that until two or three years ago similar property in the same block of apartments was valued at a much, much lower price to the range of a very few thousands of liri, and these included not families but commercial companies who were lucky enough to clinch a very good deal with the Church authorities.

Now we all know that many people became millionaires because of their contacts at the Curia and managed to buy land for a pittance: land which our Catholic brothers bequeathed to the Church as a guarantee for a place a heaven and on the premise that such donation will help in the evangelisation of the Church. We know who these people are and we know who their contacts in the Curia were. We also know what is going on in Wardija, where the Church does not seem to know which are its properties, where they lie and where encroachment is rampant.

We obviously do not want the Church to give away its land for free to property speculators but neither do we want the Church to be inconsiderate when it is valuating the conversion from a temporary emphyteusis to a perpetual one, especially if it involves residences and not businesses. People who bought similar property have been betrayed because they bought the remaining years at a hefty sum, taking it for granted that the property can become freehold for a few more thousands of liri.

But now they are discovering that they were wrong, and that they have no option to either accept the Church offer, or sell their property or wait until the emphyteusis expires so that it will be converted into lease. The latter option is a raw deal indeed: a new amendment in the law introduced last August, which says that such property where the emphyteusis is for 30 years or more, will be converted into lease.

This means that the person who bought property which they bought for Lm90,000 or even Lm100,000 and more will be reduced from an owner to a mere tenant and only those children and brothers and sisters who are not married and who are living with him at the time of death can inherit the lease.

Such people argue that since the law says that the value for the conversion of the emphyteusis has to be multiplied by six, they ought not to be charged more by the Church. Amidst this confusion, such people are now at the mercy of the Church because if the Church does not budge they are in big trouble indeed.

The sad thing about it is that when these people went to complain at the Curia, they were told that there is a board which establishes such rates; and that they can do nothing about it. They admitted that they had made a mistake in the previous cases and that they do not want to negotiate – it is a take it or leave it attitude.

It is sad because the Curia was not ready to listen to them: to their plight that this extra hefty sum was not envisaged and that they are in no financial situation to cater for it; to their complaint as to how the same apartments in the same block were made to pay much less and that even commercial companies were made to pay much less; to this discrimination between one owner and the other.

Of course, you may argue that it is about time that the Church gets serious about its property and stops giving away its land for a pittance. But in this case when the Church must realise that the loss of money it made in the low price requested for the redemption of the emphyteusis in the other apartments of the same block, cannot now be extracted from the remaining owners. Moreover, the Church has the delicate dual role of having to take care of its business and of the souls of its flock. And I assure you that the stand taken by the Church so far is not helping its latter role.

In this matter, it seems that the joint office has been left out. Although the joint office deals with property that are in the same situation, it seems that certain property for reasons unknown was left in the hands of the Church. It therefore results that the Church has not transferred all titles relating to property to the government as otherwise the matter would be handled by the joint office and not by the government.

What do we want from the Church? We want the Church to stop dissociating itself from the board that is establishing the value of such conversions: the Church appointed the board, and it therefore has the Church’s blessing. We want the board to treat everybody alike. We want the board to establish the formula it is adopting for the fixed sum for people to have their property converted into perpetual emphyteusis. We want the board to consider that property owned by a commercial company has one value and the property owned for residential purposes has another value.

In other words we want the Church to be more humane in the matter.