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Journalism students at the Nova Scotia Community College have produced a damning and in-depth video investigation into Nova Scotia’s failure to offer land titles to longtime North Preston residents.
Called “Untitled,” the video series blends historical research with present-day interviews to trace how the provincial government has ignored its own promise to help Black Loyalists, Maroons and escaped slaves gain legal title to the lands they settled just outside of Halifax. Two hundred years later, some families living in North Preston still don’t have unequivocal title.
The oversight is staggering. It’s prevented centuries of land profiting and leaves some current North Preston families as vulnerable to eviction as the former residents of Africville.
Nova Scotia’s Land Titles Clarification Act was created in part to help residents of North Preston acquire legal title, but “Untitled” shows it to be a flawed process that can cost more than $10,000 to make a claim. Even the province admits to the journalism students that the current system is “challenging.”
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Last summer, residents of North Preston, Dalhousie law student Angela Simmonds and Emma Halpern of the Nova Scotia Barristers Society came together to address the province about the issue. Their efforts are chronicled in the NSCC research project, which broadcast journalism instructor Erin Moore says some 22 students have been working on—in some form or another—since September.
The videos are below, but definitely visit the Untitled site for more information and to see the province’s response.
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This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.
The challenge comes on when ownership of the property was never promised. There was no intent to grant this land to inhabitants. I don’t see there is any legal claim they can make. If they can pass on the land to descents, that’s a bonus. They are better off in comparison to the rest of us.
Actually, they could possibly make a claim of adverse possession given that they’ve occupied the land (the families/individuals that is) for so long, provided that they can show they’ve owned it Openly, to the exclusion of others, without interruption for a period of 40 years if it’s against the Province (like in this case)
http://novascotia.ca/natr/land/adverse-pos… (this is a web page for more info on it.
Or they could go through court to have clear title granted to them, provided no other parties with an interest in their land come forward. There are many avenues they could take, legally speaking, though the issue with that is the cost (monetarily speaking) and that cost can be a high one for most people.