St. Maarten Private Eye

The problem with Westin was the request for the complexnumber for the division into rights of apartment. On the documentation that goes with that also goes a kadastral situationmap, which clearly showed that the original old meetbrief (correct spelling) included the beach and part of the sea. Mr. Patrick then refused to sign for the complexnumber because basically that would have given all future owners of rights of apartment rights to the beach as well, which as he stated in the radio-program would have been against the law.

Westin therefor had to make a new meetbrief for the beach in order to exclude it from the division into rights of apartment. I might be wrong or I might be right but my guess is that the new meetbrief that was made for the beach still is in the name of Babit Bay Development company.

The problem here as with Duck's International is probably the incorrect old meetbrieven (Dutch plural for Certificates of Admeasurement) which included the beach on each.

Rather than doubting the integrity of the new owners, which seems to be popular and easy, the question could be who razzle-dazzled these investors into believing that the beach belonged to the sales that were made?

On the other hand, due diligence prior to a purchase, done by a qualified local legal professional should have shown that the beach could never be included in the sales.

Remains the interesting question why the beach was included in these meetbrieven in the first place? Probably due to the fact, that in the days those documents were prepared not many people cared two hoots about an area they referred to as "being beyond the face of God". It is only after rampant development of the area, sped up by the opening up of the area by a new road, that these issues came to the forefront. The old Dawn Beach Hotel had its buildings for practical purposes bounding on the natural beach (remember high water with hurricanes) but all that time had legal documents showing that the beach actually was registered in their name.