The notary who oversaw a contract for the sale of a property in Rabat’s Santa Katerina valley between Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg and Anthony Scicluna, which is being disputed by the latter’s family, insisted this week that he had nothing to do with the negotiations leading to the eventual contract.

Contacted by this newspaper, Notary Public Anton Borg said, “I, in no way, have anything to do with negotiations [any and not only this in particular]; I know nothing about them and they don’t interest me. The role of the Notary Public is to transpose what both parties want after they reaching an agreement prior to coming to the office, and this always within the remit of law.”

Mr Borg was contacted to explain his role in the deal, which was exclusively reported by this newspaper last week, in which a Dingli family is considering taking legal action in a bid to reverse the sale of the property to Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg after they learned that their mentally ill and vulnerable father had, they claim, been duped into selling the Cabinet member a piece of land under dubious circumstances.

In January 2014, Dr Borg purchased this property from 66-year-old Anthony Scicluna, who suffers from a serious mental disorder and has been described by his consultant psychiatrist as being vulnerable and unable to take decisions.

The 655 square metre property, roughly the size of a football pitch’s penalty area and which Mr Scicluna’s family says has been owned and tilled by them for generations, was sold for the sum of €10,000 and without his family’s knowledge. Moreover, included in the bargain basement price was a 16 square metre water tank in an adjacent field and a nearby 16 square metre windmill.

While several attempts at the time to convince Mr Scicluna to part with the land, which he had inherited from his father, had proved unsuccessful as Mr Scicluna had consistently refused their approaches, a deal was finally struck on 13 January 2014, after what the family describes as a weekend drinking binge with two middlemen.

 

No doctor present at contract’s signing

After the deal, Mr Scicluna’s family had raised concerns with Dr Borg over the fact that their father was mentally unwell and unfit to enter into negotiations, let alone sell the land off.

Family members speaking with this newspaper had said that when one of Mr Scicluna’s sons called Dr Borg, he asked the Parliamentary Secretary: “Do you think you did the right thing to buy the land from my mentally ill father, land which we never wanted to sell?”

We are informed that Dr Borg said, “Be careful what you are insinuating because I will sue you for slander. Your father is not mentally ill because we got him a doctor to assess him before we signed the contract.”  

But to this day the children have no idea who this doctor is and in the contract of sale there is no medical certificate attached or any mention of what the doctor said.

But despite having reportedly told the family that Mr Scicluna had been assessed, Dr Borg told this newspaper last week that no doctor had been present at the contract’s signing to confirm that Mr Scicluna had been of sound mind when he signed off the land.

The notary added, “It is not normal practice for medical doctors to be present in contracts and no, there was not a doctor present for this transaction. In my career as a notary, it was only once that I had a medical doctor present and it was for a will in hospital.

“As explained, the parties to the mentioned deed [the Vendor A.S and the Purchaser I.B], had, in my judgement the full capacity to contract by virtue of Chapter 55 of the Laws of Malta which regulates the Notarial Profession.”

Lack of promise of sale agreement explained

The family had also highlighted the fact that there was no promise of sale agreement for the property purchase and although that is perfectly legal, it is unorthodox. 

Asked about this point, the notary explains, “No promise of sale was signed prior to the transfer dated 13/01/2014 between A.S and I.B because A.S was already a co-vendor with other siblings/relatives on another promise of sale signed a few months before, the searches of which I already carried out, thus I had already confirmed the root of title of the Scicluna properties.”

 

Ian Borg and middlemen reply to story

In a Right of Reply issued on Sunday morning in the wake of the story, which had, incidentally already published Dr Borg’s version of events in full, the Department of Information said, “With reference to a story published in The Malta Independent on Sunday, Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg categorically denies allegations that he may have, in some way, bought property from someone that may not have been in the right state of mental health. Because of this, he will definitely initiate legal proceedings against those making such serious allegations.

“This was purely a private matter and internal conflicts among family members should not be used in any way to tarnish the reputation of someone who is a total stranger to such disagreements and to the family itself, merely on the basis of being a public figure.

“The property in question is a field measuring almost half a tumolo which is detached from other properties owned by Dr Borg. In this particular case, the seller had acquired the said property back in 2009 and was valued at €1,000. He then sold it to Dr Borg in 2014 for €11,700.

“Apart from that, the same person – together with his siblings and his mother – had sold another property to Dr Borg – and hence had entered into two other separate contracts before as well as following this particular transaction, together with other 17 members of his family.”

Mark Farrugia, who was one of deal’s middlemen, denied that he took Mr Scicluna out drinking in a bid to get him to sign a contract.

“I categorically condemn and deny the insinuation that I took out Anthony Scicluna, who happens to be my uncle, on a weekend drinking binge in a bid to get him to sign a contract for the sale of his property in Rabat to Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg, as has been alleged. Moreover, I confirm that Mr Scicluna appeared on the said contract voluntarily and was not picked up by me or made to appear and sign the same, as has also been alleged.”

Mr Farrugia has since initiated legal proceedings against this newspaper.

Franco Sammut, the other middleman, also denied that he was in some sort of collusion with the other broker.

He said that the allegation that Mr Sammut was involved in some sort of collusion together with the other broker in order to convince Mr Scicluna to sell the property against his own will is totally unfounded. He explained that although he was initially involved as broker, eventually he moved out of the picture and the deal was finalised and sealed by the other broker. In addition, he said he isn’t in any way close to the other broker.

As for the various allegations contained in the said article, he rebuts the same as totally unfounded both in fact and at law, and this for the following reasons.

He said he had not been in contact with Mr Scicluna for over three weeks before the signing of the public deed, “let alone having spent the weekend preceding the publishing of the contract ‘taking him from bar to bar in Dingli and Rabat and plying him with alcohol... in an all-out bid to convince him to sell the land’”.

Mr Sammut is also of the opinion that the price at which the land in question was sold, was not only a fair price, but was also more than the going market price for such a portion of land in the said area at the time of the sale.