Realty Check

Published: Sunday | August 23, 2009 Apartment owners and other shared-space dwellers will be saddled with bigger monthly bills if the draft legislation as it is now crafted were to be passed by lawmakers, the Trafalgar Council is charging. The council, which represents the interests of residents in Seymour Lands, New Kingston, Trafalgar Park and [...]

Real estate mogul Gordon Tewani has purchased the Fairview Shopping Centre in Montego Bay from the Cable & Wireless Jamaica (C&WJ) Pension Fund for over $600 million, according to the fund’s chairman Derek Jones. “The financial details will emerge in due course, but the market value of the property was $600 million. The transfer price [...]

BY Alicia Dunkley Observer staff reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com The Government yesterday made another attempt to stimulate Jamaica’s flagging real estate market by moving the original January 1, 2010 implementation date for the further reduction in stamp duty and transfer tax fees to August 1 this year. In May of 2008, the administration announced that Stamp Duty [...]

Avalon Court sits on a strip lined with expensive real estate, shared by commercial and residential investors alike. But Avalon is distinguished, to the chagrin of the people who manage the strata corporation, by its obvious deterioration and lack of proper maintenance, on the same street that is home to the historic Devon House and [...]

Faced with a tight credit market, the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) has turned to National Housing Trust to pony up 80 per cent of the financing for two new developments to be executed this year, under a deal that is worth about $640 million based on the estimated $800 million price tag on the [...]

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) has given Gore Developments Limited an environmental permit to commence a housing development at Florence Hall, Trelawny. In June, NEPA decided to grant the developers with the permit that will allow them to construct 828 two-bedroom units each with 74.3 square metres (800 square [...]

PROPERTY owners are reminded that they have until June 30 to pay their property tax for the 2009 – 2010 period, before a 10 per cent penalty will be applied for late payment. The Tax Administration had announced the automatic penalty in May, when it gave an extension of the period for persons to pay [...]

Liquidator takes control of Carlos Hill’s house BY KARYL WALKER, Court/Crime Desk co-ordinator walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com Thursday, June 18, 2009 CARLOS Hill, the embattled boss of the failed Cash Plus investment scheme, yesterday vacated the three-storey mansion he occupied at East Armour Heights, St Andrew, in keeping with an order from the court. These books – License [...]

Michelle Hirst Wednesday, June 17, 2009 Kingston today and Kingston just one year ago surprisingly look very different. Just last year, you couldn’t turn a corner without bumping into a new set of townhouses or an apartment complex under construction. Back then, if you happened to see an empty plot of land, it was almost [...]

By PAUL HENRY, Observer staff reporter editorial@jamaicaobserver.com Tuesday, June 02, 2009 ARGUING that he was broke and would be homeless if booted from the posh $40 million townhouse he now occupies at Armour Heights, St Andrew, former Cash Plus boss Carlos Hill was yesterday pitied by the courts and allowed – on humanitarian grounds – [...]