The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government’s plans to regularise land ownership for scores of downtown Marsh Harbour residents and businesses have stalled after descendants of the original Crown Land grantee to the 242-acre ‘Key tract’ launched a legal challenge to the property’s compulsory acquisition.

Prime Minister Philip Davis KC and Ryan Pinder KC, the attorney general, reported on the Government’s progress, or lack thereof, in its bid to resolve a 62-year legal battle over who has title ownership to land upon which many of Abaco’s most prominent businesses sit. The courtroom fight, which began in January 1964, some nine years before The Bahamas became an independent nation, has yet to determine who has superior title.

The Government, in 2024, signalled its intention to break the legal log-jam by publishing a ‘declaration of intended acquisition’ - that it would use its powers under the Acquisition of Land Act to compulsorily acquire real estate covering much of Marsh Harbour’s commercial and downtown district. Once the purchase was completed, it pledged to “regularise title” for all impacted property owners, “many of whom currently hold only possessory title and have been disadvantaged for many years”.

However, Mr Davis and Mr Pinder on Friday revealed at a meeting with 50-60 downtown Marsh Harbour businesses and property owners that the Government’s plan has met fresh resistance, and at the very least been delayed, after the Key family launched a separate Supreme Court legal action just prior to Christmas 2025 challenging the compulsory acquisition move.

The meeting was told that Anthony Key, as representative of the late Shepherd Key’s estate, and his family are now fighting the compulsory acquisition on the grounds that using this power cannot be justified because the land is not being acquired for a public purpose, or in the public interest and good. The Acquisition of Land Act’s compulsory acquisition powers are normally employed to acquire land that is needed for roads, bridges and other public infrastructure.

Sources present at the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity, added that the Prime Minister and Mr Pinder informed them that the Government had been negotiating with the Keys over a potential land swap transaction that would involve the family taking ownership of “land north of Marsh Harbour, 120 acres” in return for relinquishing their claim to the downtown Marsh Harbour tract.

They added that many attendees were visibly frustrated when informed of the compulsory acquisition legal challenge, with many viewing it as a negotiating ploy or tactic by the Key family to squeeze a better deal out of the Government.

”The meeting was pretty short, with the Attorney General informing that the Government land acquisition is stalled now because the Key ‘syndicate’ has challenged the Government’s authority to do it, saying it is not in the public interest,” one contact said of the meeting, held at the Ministry of Tourism’s briefing centre in Memorial Plaza.

“The challenge happened right before Christmas last year, so now it’s all back in court. The Prime Minister showed up just to reiterate what the attorney general said, and that the Government was committed to settling the matter which has been in court since 1964. No other details really.”

Attendees were tight-lipped on the meeting and what was discussed. Mr Pinder and Khalil Parker KC, the Bahamas Bar Association president, who is representing Anthony Key and the Key family, both failed to respond to Tribune Business messages seeking comment before press time. And Pericles Maillis, the well-known environmental activist who acts for Big Cat Equipment and Marsh Harbour Boat Yards in the dispute with the Keys, could not be contacted for comment.

One source familiar with the meeting said: “I think it was just like a status report to let people know that, as much as they [the Government] want progress to happen, that the Key ‘syndicate’ - as they called them - launched a lawsuit against them challenging what they are doing. The Keys are saying it’s not in the public interest; it’s not in the interests of the country.

“There were 50-60 people in the room. Everyone was really angry when they heard they’d done that. One of the things that was said was that the Government had tried to give them a good deal, a land swap, and they turned it down. They [the Prime Minister and Attorney General] said that, at the end of the day, if you are doing a Quieting Titles action you have to prove you have title to the land, and they have not done that since 1964.”

The source said there were also political undertones to the meeting ahead of tomorrow’s general election, with the Prime Minister signalling that re-electing the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) to office was vital if the Government is to move the situation to a conclusion. “The Prime Minister came in and said ‘we started this process when we came in in 2017’,” the source said.

“Then he was out, and he said that ‘as soon as we got back in we started it back up again’. It was kind of said that if we want to get this done, we’ve got to keep them in power. It truly covers all of downtown Marsh Harbour. Abaco Hardware, Maxwells Lumber Yard, Big Cat, the Rubis gas station, all along the whole tract, including Premier Importers Lumber Yard. It’s been going on since 1964.

“There was a lot of animus towards the Keys because of this. It was so close, and at the last minute, being Christmas 2025, they launched legal action to stop it. They’ve already been offered land free and clear to what they were claiming,” the source said.

“One gentleman stood up, holding an envelope, saying these were papers to the land given by his grand mother, who was a descendant of Nathan Key, and they’ve not been able to do anything with this land for 50 years.”

The Government’s previously-announced plan, once it acquired the Key tract, was to convey title to eligible persons who were able to show their legitimate interest and ownership of property in downtown Marsh Harbour. It compared this to land title regularisation efforts in New Providence areas such as Bozine Town, Sir Lynden Pindling Estates, Pinewood Gardens and Fox Hill.

However, the objectives announced in its press release were at odds with the actual compulsory acquisition of land notice, which said the move was being undertaken “for a public purpose, namely affordable housing and community development” - a difference that may have created an opening for the Key family’s latest legal challenge.

The 62-year title and land ownership uncertainty is said to have hindered real estate sales, investment and development in the downtown Marsh Harbour area because banks and mortgage financiers are reluctant to provide financing or accept property assets as collateral. People have also struggled to obtain title documents to prove ownership.

The original Crown Land grantee, who was awarded the Key tract, was Nathan Key, who served as a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy during the American Revolution and migrated south to The Bahamas in about 1783. In 1807, he received a 22-acre Crown Land grant that bears the same number as that in the Government’s compulsory acquisition advertisement. He then received a further 220 acres on March 8, 1812.