Does government have the right to take away your 2nd parcel of land?
There are a number of persons who claim that government is taking away their land or numerous reasons other than for public purposes. Some have gone all the way to the court but there are many who do not have the resources to do so. Our question is: Does government have the right to take away your land, if you own more than one parcel? Send your comments and responses using your SMART phones to 8668 or post your vote on our e-poll at channel5belize.com. You can also send an email with your comments to questions@channel5belize.com.
If someone paid for their land and have 100 parcels of land they pretty much own it and the government should not have any thing to say unless it’s not being taken care of i.e. cut the grass, trash as so forth. Every Belizean would say the same thing. I would say it’s just common sense.
My answer is No! The constitution says so long as the property owner is compensated. I find that completely horrible. If someone does not want to sell their private property the government should have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to take it by force. Not if they compensate, not ever, no how, no way.
If the government decides they really need that persons said land then they need to convince the landowner to sell it through offering a premium price for it. Not just steal it and say “here is fair market value because we need it”.
Any time a government “needs” property they should either plan ahead (not realistic for a government, but still true), plan accordingly with land they can aquire or they should simply pay a premium to get the said land. This is something that is normal practice and part of normal everyday decision making in private citizens and companies lives, it should be no different for the government. Many ventures are adapted around what can be done in the fair and open market, including real estate ventures.
This is becoming more and more of a problem in this nation and it is more insidious than just the government taking land from a private citizen for government use. In many cases the government takes away land from private citizens and give it to another private entity, a corporation or foreign investor.
Also, I believe that as citizens everyone should pay their taxes. Therefore, if a person is not paying their land taxes and refuse to pay the amount owed to the government, in that case, our government should have the right to take away any such land or if they have illegally acquired such lands. If these persons are are up-to date in payment with both pieces of parcel, government should not interfere at all with that persons land.
The government will of course want to allege that it is to promote overall economic developmemnt in the area and in the end yes benefit the government but this is flat out wrong. As from the looks of things I believe that every person in Belize ought to have their own land! Anyway, private property should be just that (and subject only to government FORCE when there is illegal activity therein – and even then only with just cause and a little thing called due process! – not just cause we said so
And by the way too, why in the world should we give up our land when the government officials and their crony entities are gobbling up the land by the acres in their own self interest, if they refuse to give up their land then why should we give up ours!
Sincerely, 20 year old Belizean chick
Absolutely not…This is not communist Cuba but day by day it seems that we are headed in that direction… Why should government feel the need to take away my property that I have worked so hard for, just to turn around and give it as a hand out to some underachiever…
HELL NO
What??? is the PM following the steps of Hugo Chavez? Just what we needed: higher cost of living, more crime and now we have to dela with a Chavez wannabe.
Any and everything is possible in Belize.
Everyone diagrees but I agree.
ONE PARCEL PER PERSON…a person cannot be living at two places at the same time…only persons with the ages of 18 years can apply for a land…how babies, kids and teenagers get a parcel of land in their name, given by GOVERNMENT. If the family wants a land for the kids….then make them PAY of the price…
PLEASE BUT THE FOLLOWING ON TODAYS NEWSCAST. THIS IS A GREAT IDEA:
“Belize needs an ONLINE Land Management System so that ALL Belizeans be able to monitor the lands been distributed by GOVERNMENT and the price been paid. This would help us avoid the underpricing of lands, frauds, or protected areas land distribution violation…In addition, have proper legislation to address the issues of underpricing and land gifts.
For instance, if a person receives a title without been on the online database, then the land title is void because surely would indicate that it is not registered in the system (meaning not legal because the process is not transparent since Belizeans have no knowledge about the land title in question). Moreover, if the land is undervalued, then, the land title is reassess and taken away if it was deliberately under- priced. Only half percent of compensation because of the attempted fraud”
They need to start with the Ministers….some of them have hundreds of acres while the average Belizean is struggling with their one or two
I think every belizean should be given a piece of land. It should be a birth right. Land is only given out during election time.I had a piece of land years ago and without my knowledge it was taken away. Im now in the process of getting another piece.It is so much hassel.In the end it will all be worth it, to have peice of our beautiful jewel.
“Better Belize”- that is not a great idea at all. That idea presents certain issues- 1. Many belizeans will not want their private information to be online and be available to the public. Speaking for myself I would never want my information out and I spoke to my boss about your comment and there was a large disagreement about your idea. Let me give you an example, if I purchase a land by the sea side which we all know are expensive and someone else bought a piece of land probably near a swampy area and put the cost and the name of persons who bought that land online, don’t you think that that will cause controversy? Criminals will be able to go online and write down the information of these people and target them. If you bought a small piece of swampy land at a cheap price nobody cares especially if you are poor. But let the man or woman with the money purchase a seaside expensive lot they will become the targets because the criminals can look at the amount you payed for your land and think to themselves, Yeah, this one have money mek we go thief fah deh! When the information is kept confidential we will be able to prevent future crimes. Your idea will only cause our society to dig a deeper hole into the ground when we already have enough crimes on our hands. We do not need another can of worms to be open, this will cause a spike in theft/ robberies due to ease of access to private information like that. Nice idea however be mindful of the environment that we are living in. 2. Be mindful also that the internet is not as safe as it once was, there is what you call internet piracy etc. Information can be altered by officials right under our noses, it is like the crime statistics, they gave us a report but we all know those things had to be altered in some way. If we want to know if questionable actions over land distribution are happening we should investigate the ministry itself. Please leave our private information out of this, It’s just too risky!!!!!
Kim:I believe every Belizean is entitle to what ever amount of land they wish to invest in.There shouldn’t be any limitations.If you can afford to maintain it.
Government has no right in taking away land from anyone, remember in most cases these are past on to family members from generation to generation.
There is so much LAND IN BELIZE, there is no need for Gov’t to be taking away land. Let them cut down tree, put electricity, and LAY THE PIPE. TAKING AWAY LAND FROM PEOPLE THAT IS IN A CENTRAL LOCATION IS EASY FOR EVERYONE, EVERYBODY WANTS TO move to a location with ALL NECISITY, WELL BIG BROTHERS, DON’T LET GOV’T DO THAT, BECAUSE THEN THEY WILL DEFINATELY BE LAYING THE PIPE ON YOU.
We all have that right to own a piece of our Belizean land,we deserve it ,but with the lands dep’t being politicized now its hard ,we all need to turn UDP’S maybe we can get a parcel of land lol ! I wonder the UDP says that all the land distribution given to thousands of Belizeans{PUP]- supporters as many as 60,000 + lots are illegal? and many of them are being cancelled because ur a PUP supporter u don’t have a right to that lot,{just for being a PUP supporter] I can understand that there were some PUP cronies that recieved thousands of parcels ….they are the ones that needs there lots cancelled,but its something that the UDP needs to watch on a mirror…they are taking away lands from the poor people also and are giving them to their cronies\close family members,I believe that not PUP nor UDP gov’ts have a right to take away ur lots,BUT we see that the victimisation is mostly with the DEAN BARROW gov’t.DEAN BARROW promised to give their land titles to the MAYAS of Toledo ,let’s see how longer they will have to wait.”power to the people.
Yes, I agree that they should. I know a coupla people who have several pieces, just out of greed. Most of them have the land and do not put any thing on it and do not even have the sense to keep it clean. Most people live in their house and don’t clean their yard and an empty parcel is worst. I think when someone applies they should have some way of checking to see if they have already and deny them then and there. The future generation will have no chance of ever obtaining a piece of land in future years. Lots of people go into the ministers office and beg for land and as soon as they get it (for free or a $5 stamp) they sell it for an arm and a leg, which i think is ridiculous. So i agree each person get one piece and be happy with that.