Valuing Land in Grenada & Lawyers in Grenada

Trusts Discussion
1

Dear Forum

I appreciate that my query is a bit of a longshot but thought I would still post just in case someone on here is able to assist.

The directors of this firm are the personal representatives of the estate of D which includes a piece of land in Grenada. The estate is not taxable but form IHT400 is required in order to claim the RNRB. As I understand it the deceased’s father owned about an acre of land which passed to his three sons following his death, so about one third each.

One son, Z died in August 2018. D died in 2025 and the other son (Y) is still alive.

D’s estate is divided into five equal shares between his daughter, three grandchildren and Y. Relationships between the daughter/grandchildren and Y are not great. I have been told that Y believes that as the patriarch, D’s piece of land passed to him on his death and tried to do the same when Z died. We do not have any plans or documents relating to this land.

We understand that the daughter of Z instructed a Nigel D Stewart of Nigel D Stewart & Associates in Grenada in connection with the piece of land belonging to her father (and as I understand it adjoins the piece of land which passed to D).

As part of the probate process, I need to establish the extent of the land owned by D and the approximate value of it.

I have emailed Mr Stewart and he is able to assist but before I formally instruct him, I need to check if he holds a practising certificate for compliance purposes. When I google him, I see that did in or around 2022 and 2023 but cannot find anything current.

I have checked the General Legal Council website but despite reference to a list of Attorneys who hold a practising certificate, there is no list or link to access a list. I have tried emailing the General Legal Council but my emails have gone unanswered and when I tried telephoning last week, I spoke to a lady who kindly put me through to the right department but there was no reply

Estate Research have provided three contacts. The email of one bounced back. The second contact has replied but is unable to help and I am still awaiting a response from the third contact which may or may not come.

Has anyone on here instructed Mr Stewart before? If so, can you confirm that he holds a current practising certificate and would you recommend him. If so, it makes sense to instruct him as he was involved when Z died. Has anyone on here instructed another lawyer in Grenada and if so, who and what was your experience with them?

Generally, does anyone have an idea as to the value of land in Grenada for the purposes of completing IHT417 and answering the rest of the questions on that schedule. I believe the land is used for grazing etc although one beneficiary said she had heard via another family member that a house may have been built on the land. This is the only issue holding up our submitting the IHT400. I am keen to get a grant as soon as possible so that the property can be sold at auction.

If no-one is able to assist with the above, any input/suggestions as to how I deal with this piece of land in Grenada on IHT400 would be appreciated. The gross value of the estate is just under £354,000 excluding the land. There is no TNRB but there is D’s RNRB.

Thank you.

Sarah Markham

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Hi Sarah,

I think my reply is a long shot too! – but I thought I’d just put some highly informal thoughts here about how we’d approach this, if for example we were asked to help with something like this. I’m not at all a Grenada expert, nor am I a lawyer or tax advisor. I have past, practical experience with similar matters, in the Caribbean and beyond. I hope these thoughts will be of some help, and very much welcome practitioner input to correct any incorrect assumptions here, or indeed misunderstandings about the facts of the case.

The first issue holding you up is having no value, so you can’t file the IHT400; but I think a prior issue to that is the absent Title to the land.

I note that you’ve mentioned that you do not have any plans or documents relating to this land. I think it adjoins another piece of land in the family, but that may not be helping much in the circumstances (is it possible anyone can produce a cadastral map showing some boundaries?). You also don’t know whether or not the land has in fact had a structure built on it, with the further complications that might entail. (This 2023 article discusses the topic of adverse possession in Grenada.)

In principle, provided you did know the exact details of the tract of land in question, you could engage a firm of local, certified real estate appraisers to travel to the site and provide you with date of death and current market valuations. A number of these can be found using AI-assisted search engine searches – without comment as to their quality. I did note, for what it’s worth, that the Grenada Development Bank publishes a list of approved real estate appraisers, in case that would be useful to cross-check any online finds.

However, unless the family has extremely good information about the land in question, which it appears they don’t, then I would expect the questions to come thick and fast from the real estate appraisers, at an early stage: where are the Deeds? What are the cadastral details needed to define the boundaries of the plot?

You may first have to verify that D has good Title to the land in the first place.

A good deal of land in Caribbean islands and elsewhere is ‘inherited’ in only an informal sense; it can be so complicated to deal with the estate and conveyancing work, that the actual transfer of Title doesn’t always take place. I’m not sure whether, in this case, you do have a documentary record of D being the legal owner of this land.

So I do think that you’ll first need an Attorney to check Title. Rather than continue to try and reach the offices of Nigel D Stewart & Associates, my practical suggestion is that you park that line of enquiry and approach as many law firms in Grenada that include conveyancing and inheritance as you can find online. I appreciate this may be what you’ve already tried through Estate Search’s contacts, so there may be no added value here. Where you have no recommended names, you may have no other choice but to judge of a firm’s suitability by whether they respond at all, and the quality and substance of their replies. The more challenging the territory, the larger the number of firms it’s advisable to approach: increasing your chance of getting meaningful responses that you can use to compare notes and decide who to instruct.

Thinking meanwhile about the IHT400, I wonder whether you might be able to speak to some local real estate agents there, and seek out a best guess as to what an unbuilt-on (and a built-on) plot in the approximate area in question might be worth – even a range might be of use to include as a narrative in your IHT filing, explaining what you’ve tried so far and, critically, that you don’t have Title showing D’s ownership of the land; with all this to be corrected as soon as possible while your enquiries continue.

I’m well outside the bounds of my wheelhouse here but I do hope these thoughts may be of some help in considering what to do next. I’d happily defer to anyone with more pertinent expertise here, and wish you very good luck with it no matter what!

Louise Levene

Finders International

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