Eviction plan a worry

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Monday November 4th, 2013

 By ADAM MERA

ABOUT 4,000 people will be left homeless by an eviction exercise on some former National Housing Commission (NHC) properties.

The National Housing Estate Ltd (NHEL), an entity of the NHC, created to manage all NHC properties, is carrying out the eviction exercise

Tenants of the properties at 5-Mile, Saraga, Korbosea and 3-Mile were all served eviction notices by NHEL on Oct 29.

The notice gave them seven days to sign a new tenancy agreement with NHEL given they meet all requirements of NHEL.

Spokesman Ben Basso said a court order was sought by the tenants preventing NHC from evicting them, but now with NHEL taking over ownership of the properties, they were not sure where they stood.

“To our understanding, NHEL is part of NHC, so the court order preventing NHC from evicting us is applicable to NHEL,” he said.

He said the eviction notice claimed otherwise.

“We have done searches at the Lands Department to verify who owns these properties and NHEL doesn’t own any of it,” Basso said.

According to a letter signed by NHEL acting CEO, Madeline Paulisbo, all pertaining issues, including a court order, would not prevent NHEL from carrying out the eviction.

Former NHC principal legal officer and corporate secretary, Frederick Lunge said NHEL was still bound by the orders of the national court.

“NHEL is a body created by NHC. This means that it is still bound by the court orders,” Lunge said.

“Even if the properties were transferred to NHEL, it will have to acquire the liabilities as well and all other obligations that NHC had with its tenants,” Lunge said

He said NHEL could maintain its position as it was given the properties on a golden plate.