San Pedro Tenants Say Landlord Kicking Them Out

Another concern emerging from San Pedro Town is that landlords are kicking tenants out who can ill afford rents. These tenants are mostly non-residents of the island who are there for work. But due to the state of emergency and COVID-19, they have become jobless and now fear they may also become homeless. Our newsroom has been flooded with calls by persons saying that landlords are putting tenants out on the streets, but today Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte stressed that a landlord can only kick a tenant out with a directive from the magistrate’s court.

Michael Peyrefitte

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

“You can only be kicked out by virtue of a directive by the magistrate’s court. Landlord can’t come and kick you out. Most of these places who have rental agreements, by law, even if you don’t have one by law there must be a period of notice. Usually that notice is at the time when yo pay the rent. If you are paying the rent on a monthly basis then you have a thirty days notice which is the length of the state of emergency. If you purposely kick a person out and you know that that person has nowhere else to go. Clearly you have taken an action to me that will cause panic and fear. Which means under the summary jurisdiction act if you just do that wantonly like that with no reason just out of spite then you are committing an offence. Not only that no police can come and just take somebody out of the resident and say that the landlord wants you out. The police man must have a judicial order that says that. In this case, a case of national emergency we ask the landlords that everybody else is making a sacrifice make the sacrifice until we get a handle on this situation in San Pedro.”

Late this evening, we received a recorded message from Prime Minister Dean Barrow appealing for calm and assuring the population of food security. That statement will be aired immediately following this newscast.