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Lego Mi Land!
Fri, October 9, 2015
Tonight a Belize City couple is concerned that their piece of land in the Lake Independence Area will be taken away from them. This evening the couple took 7news out to the area near the CB Hyde Building where works are being done on their property - they say without their permission. It has been going on for a while now. According to Darren Helmsley and his wife Tricia, the Chinese business owner who's building nearby - and whose property adjoins theirs had offered them money for their land which they refused. They have visited the Lands Department in Belmopan and in Belize City, in hopes of getting a stop order. But they say work has not stopped. They told 7news they are worried that things might get worse - and so they are sounding the alarm publicly before it does.

Tricia Hemsley, Land Owner
"The problem is that this is our land. The land is for my husband. This lady who have the block factory, she wants the land. She called and asked me and I told her no, because I need the land. She must have said that she called me and I didn't want and now I got it through the minister. The thing is it looks like Mark King took some papers to Belmopan, but it didn't published. So now they are pushing us around because at first he told us that he only wants access to come in and fill the rest of land, but now he knocked down our fence and he filled the land. I don't think it is fair. My husband is a sergeant in the Belize Defence Force. We are born Belizean. No way anybody can go to China and get a piece of land. This is politics."

"Before they sold out here, we use to come in and filled up, because this was swamp. We noticed that we fil until we reached out land. When the lady bought this land, some filling was on it. They tell us at Lands Department if you have your land and you are paying to time and you don't have any access, the land automatically belongs to you. I don't know what is happening here because everywhere is filled now."

"We can't get in. The neighbor said that he will not give us an entrance, no access. So we are on standstill. We need the stop order to have them stop. They told us at Land Department, if they start to do anything to come back to them. When I go here now, they pushed us around in a circle. You can't get any head way. This is not right. We went to Lands Department in Belmopan and when they check the computer Darren Hemsley name is showing for the land. They told us that the land is for us. But we don't want any problems and that's why we are trying to stop them."

Area representative Mark King told us today that there is indeed some confusion about the Helmsley property. He says it started at the lands office in Belize City which said the Helmsley land had no owner - but when they checked in Belmopan, it turns out the Helmsley's did own it. He said they are in the process right now of verifying if the lease did not expire.

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