In the case Bezzina Francesco et vs Borg Louis et, decided by Hon. Anna Felice presiding in the First Hall Civil Court, the Court was asked to examine the title over a plot of agricultural land that was the subject of a dispute between the parties.

In this case, the plaintiffs asked the Court to declare that they are the owners of a piece of agricultural land on the basis of a contract in 1895 by which a perpetual ground rent was redeemed by the plaintiff’s ascendants. The defendants, on the other hand, claim that they are the owners of the land because they purchased the land and registered title in their name by virtue of a public deed entered into in 1994. The plaintiffs therefore wished to attack the 1994 contract of sale and requested the Court to declare that at the time of this contract, they were already owners of the land in question. The defendants insist that the plaintiff’s title is one of emphyteusis and not ownership, and raised the plea of prescription under Article 2143 of the Civil Code. This article states that:

All actions, whether real, personal, or mixed, are barred by the lapse of thirty years, and no opposition to the benefit of limitation may be made on the ground of the absence of title or good faith.

With regards to the plea of prescription, the defendants argued that the land in question has been in their family’s possession for at least fifty or sixty years until it was finally acquired in 1994. The Court however rejected the plea of prescription as it is only relevant if the defendants wished to prove title by possession, and not ownership. Since the defendants are claiming that their title is one of ownership, they cannot simultaneously invoke provisions relating to possession in their favour.

The defendants also argued that in the return filed for the acceptance of an inheritance (denunzja) of Carmelo Bezzina, from whom the plaintiffs inherited the property, the land in question was not mentioned and therefore his heirs had no claim to the land. The Court also rejected this argument as wills (and therefore returns filed for the acceptance of a testamentary inheritance) are unilateral acts and therefore not sufficient to overthrow other evidence submitted.

Another issue was whether the disputed land is in fact the same piece of land. Historically, the land in question formed part of a larger plot of land that belonged to the Francia family and was subject to a perpetual ground rent. This was then divided into three parts, one of which was given to Carmelo Bezzina’s father. The defendants claimed that the pieces of land might not be the same, as the description of the land in the respective contracts was inconsistent. According to the defendants, the land was inherited by the Francia family, whose heir had sold the land to the defendant as the dominus (owner) and not by emphyteusis. The defendants claimed that the land was given to the Bezzina family on a title of temporary emphyteusis of ninety nine years, which expired in 1964. Therefore, the defendant argued that Carmelo Bezzina could not in fact own the land but held the land under an agricultural lease.

The plaintiffs had to prove their title on a balance of probabilities and not beyond reasonable doubt. Once the plaintiffs proved title, the court could compare their title to the one claimed by the defendants. In this particular case, the court appointed experts came to diverging conclusions. The first expert concluded that the land redeemed by the Bezzina family in 1895 is not in fact the same land that the defendants bought on the basis of the inconsistent descriptions. However, additional experts concluded that the two contracts related to the same piece of land. The experts explained that this conclusion was reached that by examining how the larger plot of land that belonged to the Francia family was divided, as evidenced by a contract in 1917,

The Court therefore, after considering all the evidence, which included plans and the opinion of the court appointed experts, found that the plaintiffs proved to the court that the land which the defendants bought in 1994 is in fact the same land their family acquired by redemption in 1895. It follows that the defendants could not have acquired the land. The majority of the evidence did not uphold the defendants’ arguments. The Court observed that the plaintiff’s first request to declare that the land belongs to them should be accepted, however it is clear from the evidence that the land in fact belongs to both parties, since the defendants are also Carmelo Bezzina’s heirs. Therefore, the Court ruled in favour of the plaintiffs, and ordered the defendants to pay expenses.

Dr Elise Dingli is an Advocate at GANADO Advocates