Chris Mintoff was told he had no right to file the appeal.

The president of the chamber of architects is at loggerheads with the planning authority after it issued a building permit on his land without his knowledge.

Chris Mintoff, who heads the Kamra tal-Periti, told the Times of Malta that Mepa had refused to revoke a planning permit for a mystery garage complex on his Marsascala field, filed by someone without his permission.

“I went to see a plot of land which I had inherited many years ago and to my surprise found a permit for garages to be built, which I knew nothing about,” he said.

It turned out that the permit had been issued to Henry Borg – a retired planning enforcement officer who used to be responsible for sniffing out building irregularities.

Contacted by this newspaper, Mr Borg gave multiple reasons why he felt the development should go ahead.

Shifting between saying the land was his, and that it actually belonged to neither him nor Mr Mintoff, Mr Borg’s reasons for filing the application were not clear.

What did become clear, however, was that he was dead set on the project.

“This is my baby and I’ll do anything to see this project through. I’ve just given blood at hospital and I think I’m even ready to bleed for this if needs be,” Mr Borg said.

Mr Mintoff, meanwhile, is in possession of documentation which proves he is the rightful owner of the property, but this was not enough to stop the process.

He said he had written to the authority to point out that they had issued an application based on fraudulent information, but it had insisted it did not get into “ownership issues”, and he would have to settle the matter in court.

Mr Mintoff had even appealed the decision not to revoke the permit but was told he had no right to appeal since he was not the applicant, leaving him with no option but to take the matter to court.

Mr Borg had been involved in a similar case with another landowner. The Court of Appeal finally decided against him in 2009 after 17 years.

“I don’t want to spend the next decade arguing over a piece of land which I legally own. I should not have to,” Mr Mintoff said, adding that he had merely asked Mepa to request proof of ownership from Mr Borg.

It was at this point that the architect decided to turn to the Ombudsman, urging him to investigate the matter. In a detailed letter to the authority seen by this newspaper, the Ombudsman’s Planning Commissioner, David Pace, called on Mepa to ask the applicant to present documents backing his claim.

However, if the garage permit was issued on the back of fraudulent information then it was not legally valid, Mr Pace said.

He said the premature dismissal of Mr Mintoff’s complaint would render Mepa liable to legal action.

Mepa chairman Vince Cassar said it would not weight in on the matter, insisting again to the Ombudsman that Mepa does not enter into ownership issues.

Mepa is allowing the application to remain in force.

Mr Mintoff has taken legal action but described the whole matter as a “bureaucratic mess”.

“This is a waste of court time,” he said.

“What is the significance of the declaration which applicants are bound to make by law if anyone can declare to be the owner of every piece of land?”

Mepa, he insisted, should not abdicate its responsibility.

“This is just ridiculous,” he said.