The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Exuma Chamber of Commerce’s president yesterday pledged to move swiftly to bring the warring Oceania Heights factions “back to the table”, admitting he was “disappointed” with the settlement proffered by one of the developers.

Pedro Rolle told Tribune Business that prior to departing on holiday to Brazil, he believed an “understanding and agreement” had been reached between developers and homeowners on how to settle the dispute at the controversy-torn real estate project.

However, the settlement offer from Bahamian attorney Anthony Thompson was “completely and utterly rejected” by the Oceania Heights Property Owners Association, their president, Chris Fleming, describing it as “absolute nuts”.

Mr Fleming told Tribune Business that the settlement offer attempted to off-load $2.75 million in liabilities incurred by Mr Thompson and his fellow developer, Canadian citizen Howard Obront, on to them.

But, undaunted, Mr Rolle said that after speaking to Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis, he was making one last push to arrive at a “concrete” settlement all parties signed up to.

“When I left I thought we were on the path towards resolution, as we had a number of discussions on this and had come to an understanding and agreement in principle on what we were going to do,” Mr Rolle told Tribune Business.

But, in his absence, he conceded that the homeowners had rejected Mr Thompson’s offer as “completely unacceptable”.

Mr Rolle, who has been working with Mr Davis to resolve the Oceania Heights situation, said he had “shared their concerns” with the Deputy Prime Minister.

In response, Mr Davis had asked him to “sit down and look at the proposal by Mr Thompson, and go back to him one more time and see if we can negotiate out areas of concern and differences”.

Pledging to adopt such an approach, Mr Rolle told Tribune Business: “We can’t afford to be going back and forth at this stage, because we’re going back on things I thought we had passed.

“At this point we know what all the facts are. We have passed the discovery stage, and finding out what occurred, what happened.

“We know what needs to happen. We need to find a way to make it happen.”

Noting that he and Mr Davis had been attempting to resolve the Oceania Heights dispute since January 2013, Mr Rolle said he would go back to the Deputy Prime Minister “one more time” - but only if he had “something concrete we have agreed in writing”.

“We have to come to reality, and hopefully I can get something in place quickly,” Mr Rolle said.

“The homeowners are so frustrated right now they may walk away, but if I can act quickly hopefully I will bring them back to the table.”

A copy of Mr Thompson’s proposed settlement, which has been seen by Tribune Business, agrees to transfer to the homeowners all the common areas, roadways and unsold lots (some 24).

The agreement also commits Mr Thompson to complete the conveyances for 18 homeowners who had paid the full purchase price but not received their documents, and passes to the Property Owners Association some $692,129 in unpaid maintenance fees.

But, in return, the proposal hands the burden of installing the remaining infrastructure at Oceania Heights to the homeowners, along with the contractual obligations previously belonging to Mr Thompson and the landholding firm, Oceania Heights.

And it also leaves the burden of paying $161,300 allegedly owed to five Oceania Heights staff, plus $6,000 in unpaid National Insurance Board (NIB) contributions, with the homeowners.

In addition, the document burdens the Oceania Heights Property Owners Association with paying the Stamp Duty on the 18 conveyances Mr Thompson is completing, and the “unpaid Stamp Duties and penalties alleged to have been remitted” to the attorney’s law firm but never passed on to the Government.

And, in return for taking over his multi-million dollar liabilities, Mr Thompson wants the Oceania Heights homeowners to indemnify him and his law firm from “any liability - whether legal or otherwise”.