Strickland heir wins €54,000 compensation for takeover of Mrieħel bypass land  

Mabel Strickland’s heir has been awarded nearly €54,000 in compensation and moral damages over two parcels of land taken by the government in the 1990s when constructing the Mrieħel bypass.

Robert Hornyold-Strickland took his case to the Land Arbitration Board in 2018 after repeated calls to the government authorities proved futile.

The matter revolved around two parcels of land forming part of a larger portion in the area known as Ta’ Sakku Borgia, in the limits of Qormi, which had originally been acquired by Lord Gerald Strickland by means of a partition in 1918.

The property was inherited by Strickland's daughter, Mabel Strickland, and subsequently by her heir upon her death in 1988.

Lord Gerald Strickland

Two presidential declarations, which were published in The Malta Government Gazette in July 1991 and April 1992, announced that the two portions of the land in question were to be acquired by the government under title of sale.

The first portion measured 1,269 square metres and the other measured 215 square metres.

The government declared that the land was needed for a public purpose, the Mrieħel bypass. However, no notice was ever issued by the authorities in terms of law and, in spite of various calls by Hornyold-Strickland, no offer of compensation was ever made.

In 2015, he sent a judicial letter to the Government Property Department. The Commissioner for Lands replied, saying that compensation would be liquidated “in the coming days”.

One last bid to settle the matter failed and he had no option but to take the matter before the Land Arbitration Board, asking it to order the transfer of property under title of sale, to calculate adequate compensation and also determine material and moral damages.

In 2017, his architect valued the plots at €98,500 and €10,800, respectively.

However, two years later, an architect engaged by the Lands Authority reported that, since the plots were originally used for an agricultural purpose, their value in 2019 stood at €2,116 and €124.

The board appointed its own technical experts who valued the two plots at €35,500 and €4,000.

Compensation was to be granted according to the value of the property at the time it was taken by the government and revised in line with the inflation index published under the Housing Decontrol Ordinance. In light of the evidence submitted, the board, chaired by Magistrate Noel Bartolo, upheld the conclusions of the technical experts.

When meting out damages, the board took into account the size and location of the two plots, the lapse of time as well as the various unheeded requests by Hornyold-Strickland leading up to the case.

In view of a similar dispute decided last year concerning a plot of land at Naxxar, where moral damages were calculated at €750 per annum, the board set the damages in this case at €250 and €200 per annum, respectively.

Strickland was awarded compensation for the sale to the tune of €36,218 and €4,023 and a further €7,750 and €6,000 by way of moral damages, to a total of just under €54,000.