I read with great interest the article (June 12) in which it was reported that Planning Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon promised that, by the end of the year, a process would be initiated so people owed money for property expropriated in the past would get paid.

I have no doubt this was also welcome by all those whose land was expropriated by the government and who have been battling the Land Department for years on end to get what is rightfully theirs, that is, a fair compensation for the property they legally owned and have been deprived of.

Having personally recently witnessed the arrogant and nonchalant way in which the Land Department deals with low-profile claimants like my family, I cannot help but dismiss as no more than a mere PR exercise what the parliamentary secretary is reported to have promised.

For the benefit of readers, I will recount my family’s story.

My family owned two tumoli of what was then agricultural land at Naxxar. This had been earmarked for development by the Mintoff government in the 1980s and was expropriated under the Buildings Development Act 1983.

I cannot help but dismiss as a mere PR exercise what the Planning Parliamentary Secretary said about compensation

The land had been purchased by my late grandfather in 1918 with the money he had saved when he went to work in America. Up to the day the diggers turned up, nanna’s field, as we called it, was always cultivated and the produce shared by the whole family.

The original claimants (my late mother and her siblings) initiated legal action against the Land Department and were awarded the measly sum of about €280, which, of course, they refused. Due to lack of proper advice, the case was consequently put off sine die.

Apart from proper guidance, the family did not have the money to take any further action and, thus, nothing happened. My mother, like her brother and sister, died not knowing what happened to their claim against the “government” in respect of their father’s land.

About four years ago, the second generation claimants, together with the surviving two of the original five claimants, started Land Arbitration Tribunal proceedings as per the requirements of the Land Department for our family to pursue its claim against the department.

The Land Department had lost the original file and we had to start from scratch.

Our lawyer, together with the Land Department’s legal adviser, spent over a year obtaining all the searches in respect of all the claimants (some of whom reside in Australia). So a new file was opened at the Land Department, which has all the research in respect of each claimant. While the Land Arbitration Tribunal proceedings had started, the Land Department’s lawyer on many occasions informed our legal adviser that the department will be making a compensation offer.

Months past and no offer was received.

It then happened that, late last year, one of my cousins googled his name to find a legal document bearing his name and that of all the family members. To cut a long story short, it transpired that the Land Department’s lawyer had changed and that at the only Land Arbitration Tribunal sitting our lawyer missed because she was sick, the government’s new legal counsel submitted that the Land Department did not recognise our ownership of the expropriated land because no research proving ownership had been sent to the Land Arbitration Tribunal as was required.

The magistrate chairing the tribunal decided in favour of the Land Department.

The Land Department’s new lawyer evidently failed to inform the magistrate hearing the case that all the searches in respect of each one of the claimants were in the department’s file because that was what his predecessor had requested.

We now have to institute a court case against the Land Department, going through the same motions we did for the Land Arbitration Tribunal.

We are now in the absurd situation whereby our lawyer had to ask the Land Department for copies of the research done (proving our ownership of the land) that they hold on file so that she would then exhibit the documents to prove in court that we are indeed the legal owners of the land and rebut any claim to the contrary by the Land Department.

In view of our experience as shown above, both myself and my family are very much looking forward to receiving from the Planning Parliamentary Secretary an explanation of how the process will work, when can we expect our compensation and what will the amount be.

Will it be the prevailing market price of the land plus accrued interest?

Victor Agius served as commercial underwriting and product manager with an international insurance company.