Hundreds of Housing Development Corporation (HDC) clients who are occupying homes under the Lease to Own (LTO) or Rent to Own (RTO) programmes are being given 30-day notices to complete payments on their homes or face eviction, Movement for Social Justice leader David Abdulah said yesterday.
Speaking at a press conference at the MSJ headquarters in San Fernando, Abdulah said the HDC was invoking a clause from the clients’ original agreements to deprive them of their homes.
“This, while it may be legal according to the sale agreement, is totally unjust, this is injustice. It is going to lead to the dispossession of people’s homes. The MSJ is opposed to it. We say this is wrong,” Abdulah said.
He said the HDC had been putting out ads to this effect in the media but he said the MSJ would stand by the homeowners in the matter.
“You may have seen ads appearing in the newspaper over the last few days. The ads are HDC ads so this is not something the MSJ is making up. We are prepared to stand with homeowners in solidarity on this issue,” he added.
The problem with the 30-day ultimatum, Abdulah said, was that it may force some homeowners into the streets.
“Now that may have been in the original agreement but quite clearly people cannot be occupying and paying rent very judiciously from whenever they got their leases, for six or more years, then being told after six years that you have 30 days to get a mortage,” he added.
In fact, he said, there were many people who have RTO agreements who were already close to retirement age and could not qualify for a mortage.
He added: “The person who has been renting and is now in their mid-50s and is told by the financial institution they only have about four years to pay off their mortage, though the interest may be low, the monthly payment is going to be very high because the timeframe to pay off the mortage is very small.
“And the qualifying income for the mortage is going to be very high so persons, including public servants, police officers, teachers, will not qualify for the mortage and if they don’t qualify for the mortage they can’t pay off the purchase price to the HDC and therefore they’ll be out in the street, homeless.”
Abdulah gave members of the media a copy of one of the letters he said was sent to a homeowner but said the name and address of the person were blacked out so the person would not face discrimination.
He said interested homeowners could contact the MSJ at 657-0408 if they wanted representation.
Political Mischief
Housing Development Corporation managing director Jearlean John yesterday accused MSJ leader David Abdulah of creating “political mischief” over the matter yesterday.
“As far as I am concerned, they misrepresented the facts by presenting these letters the way they did.
“There is no need for this grand stand. It amounts to nothing more than political mischief. We don’t want to kick anyone out of their homes,” John said.
She said the letters would have been most likely sent out to clients who ignored numerous requests from the HDC to come in and talk about getting a mortage but added that the HDC was in the process of drafting another letter to send to clients.
“We don’t have a name to these letters but it would have been sent to someone who ignored continued requests to come into the HDC and get started on their mortage.
“But right now we are in the process of drafting another letter, one that cannot be misunderstood so easily,” she added.
She said clients whose financial situation had changed so much that they now could not afford a mortage would either have their licence to occupy extended or a rental agreement drawn up.
“Once they come to us, tell us what is going on, we will make other arrangements to either extend the LTO or draw up a rental agreement. We will not be putting people out of their houses,” she added.