From squatter to legal homeowner..? |23 January 2020

(L to r) PS William-Melanie, PS Barbe and PS Choppy during the press conference yesterday (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

If you come across an empty house, move in your family and your belongings and call it home, can you ever stake a legal claim to the property? The answer is no, an astounding No!

On Tuesday night the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) reported on a family who had entered into an empty prefab house at Ile Perseverance. Josette Matombe and Ronny Lalande, along with their new born baby, had been squatting in the house for over a week and on Tuesday the Property Management Company (PMC) formally issued them a letter and demanded that they leave the property.

Following the outcry from the public to help the family, the Ministry of Habitat, Infrastructure and Land Transport and the Ministry for Family Affairs organised a press conference yesterday at MHILT office, Independence House.

The press conference was headed by the principal secretary for habitat, Denis Barbe, the principal secretary for infrastructure, Yves Choppy and the principal secretary for social affairs Linda William-Melanie.

The purpose of the prefab house in quetion serves as temporary accomodation for people in dire need before moving to their permanent home. Once the residents move out of the temporary accommodation, it undergoes repairs and remains empty for weeks which provides ample time for squatters or vandals to use it for their various nefarious activities.

“It is not our policy to disclose the details of our applicants to the public but in regard to this case we feel that it would be relevant for people to know the real situation,” said Mr Barbe.

He added that Ms Matombe has had an application with the housing department since 2002. However, the first contribution under the housing scheme started in 2014 and the payment was not consistent. There was an opportunity for them to be assisted with a house in 2018 but it wasn’t possible as they were not consistent with their payment.

Mr Barbe noted that in 2018 no payment was made on their part. He remarked that during December 2018 the family in question appeared before the rent board as they were facing problems paying their rent.

“From then on we reached out to the family and advised them on the importance of paying their contribution under the scheme, as at the time only Ms Matombe was working and a contribution in 2019 was paid,” said Mr Barbe.

Last year, the Ministry of Family Affairs helped them relocate to a new house. However the situation repeated itself where they could not pay their rent. They were then given further assistance and was able to find them an affordable house to rent at Baie Lazare with a monthly rental of R5,500 per month. The government provided further assistance to them by assisting them with part of the rental which was R3,500 and the family only had to pay R2,000.

“They could pay their R2,000 that they were supposed to but they were evicted in December last year and did not come back to us for assistance but instead took matters in their own hand,” said PS Barbe.

He added that many government agencies provided help to the family.

Mr Barbe noted that if the family had taken their responsibility while being assisted with a rental by government at Baie Lazare ,this problem could have been avoided as we had a plan to assist them with their own house once the housing project would have completed in their respective district.

“If when they were asked to leave and they had come to us and updated us on their issue, then we would have been able to assist them further. We are only asking them to do their part and meet us halfway,” said Mr Barbe.

On her part, Mrs William-Melanie noted that the Ministry of Family Affairs had been working with the family since last year and even liaised with the Ministry of Employment where the husband was placed on the Unemployment Relief Scheme, but for some reason he dropped out.

“We want the media and the public to know that all the necessary departments and agencies were working and helping the family,” said the PS.

She added that their officers are assessing the situation and decisions will be made concerning the baby.

“The family have other alternatives such as family support but for a reason or another they are not reaching out to them,” added Mrs William-Melanie.

Christophe Zialor