-says sole compliant account being used for land deal with T&T firm
Saying that Houston Estates owes almost $450 million in taxes to the city, Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine yesterday said the company has been using one compliant account to process the sale of lands which fall under other accounts that are in arrears.
Narine told a press conference yesterday that the city administration has records for four Houston Estates accounts, three of which have outstanding balances. He noted that the single account 044-00001, which is up to date with its payments, is being used for the compliance to process the transactions for all other lands.
The amounts $115,154,906, $174,806,614 and $157,500,817 ($447,462,337 in total) are outstanding from the accounts 041-000001, 042000001 and 043-000001, respectively, according to Narine, who explained that every division and subdivision of the lands has a different account in the council’s records.
“We are not against this company. All we are asking is that they gave us our fair share. We have been asking them to come and talk to us and submit the documents, the plan for the sub divided lands and the transport for us to verify but they have not done so,” Narine said.
According to the Mayor, on November 18th the city council’s Special Finance Committee met with Duane Lopes, Company Secretary of Houston Estates, to iron out the issue of outstanding taxes on the three accounts. During the meeting, Narine said, they asked Lopes to submit the necessary transports and plans for the lands at Plantation Houston and Rome (which falls under the accounts) along with all subdivided lands to clarify why account 044-00001 was used to apply for all compliances instead of the individual accounts.
However, the Mayor said that the company has since failed to submit the documents and although a letter was sent to remind Lopes of the meeting, he has failed to respond.
Narine stated that during the meeting, Lopes had informed the Special Finance Committee that the transports and plans for the lands are “very old” but Lopes was informed that the committee would still like to look at them.
In a letter, dated November 20th, Narine said it was necessary to seek a resolution and added that if the company fails to comply with the council’s request, the council would be forced to take alternative action to recover overdue taxes.
“If we receive the documents and we are wrong, we will accept that and apologise but they are not coming forward to meet with us and it is unfair… We at the Mayor and City Council [are] trying to put up a resolution but we are not able to do so. If they had come to us as we requested this matter would not have reached to the media,” Narine stressed.
The Mayor further stated that during a 2017 Finance Committee meeting, a decision was taken for the correct tax to be levied on the owners of lands at Plantation Houston/Rome.
The council had agreed that lands sold by the estate for residential and commercial purposes should attract taxes of 40% and 250%, respectively.
It was noted that Houston Estates has been selling land that was titled as agricultural lands and attracted a 40% tax since 2005. With that development, the council decided to revalue the lands and have the correct value attached, since the use had changed.
Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore during the press conference said that the council has been advised to pursue the matter to recoup the outstanding balance through the courts.
Attorney for Houston Estates, Timothy Jonas told Stabroek News yesterday he did not have any comments to make.
He had previously said Houston Estates had paid its due. “They [City Hall] have acknowledged and we have always paid. For them to turn around and multiply by 10 is something,” he said last week, before noting that he did not want to say much about the issue as it is currently engaging a court. He did, however, stress that his clients did not owe City Hall.
Redstart Investments Meanwhile, Mentore yesterday announced that the city has withdrawn the injunction obtained to freeze the sales agreement between Redstart