Lower Partridge Road property has been subject of dispute dating back decades Photo: Beatrice Wilkins is shown near a disputed parcel of land in East Preston. Peter James Williams Jr.’s land in East Preston had been in the family for generations. But his grandson, Wade Williams, alleges that in the late 1980s, someone blatantly stole almost 14 hectares from the family lot on Lower Partridge River Road (formerly Frog Lake Road). Although Dartmouth resident Beatrice Wilkins acquired legal title to more than 13 hectares next to the Williamses property in 1997, Wade Williams still asks how she even came to lay claim to the land in the first place. SEE ALSO: Property disputes still seethe in Preston area When Williams had the land surveyed in 1986, an abutting property (Lot 137) next to his land of more than 13 hectares showed “owner unknown.” A second survey done in 1988 showed the lands were claimed by Wilkins. “As far as I (and) the family know, our grandfather, Peter James Williams, owned this property all the way over to the other side of the new Highway 107,” Wade Williams said. The most intriguing thing about the land claim, he said, is that his grandfather’s name was Peter James Williams, and Wilkins “supposed deed” that her mother, Lena West, gave to her says her land abuts Peter Williams’s (his great-grandfather’s) land. Peter Williams Sr., the father of Peter James Williams Jr., owned land about five houses down the road from his son in the trees on Partridge River Lane, Wade Williams said. Five or six years ago, when he contacted the provincial Natural Resources Department to find out exactly where Wilkins’s property was located, “it wasn’t anywhere near granddaddy’s property,” he said. Wilkins’s land begins where Wade Williams’s property line ends and stretches to Highway 107. In an interview, Wilkins said her aunt, Katherine (Cass) Riley, granted the deed to the the land to Wilkins’s mother, Lena West, in 1968. And before West died 31 years ago, she left the land to Wilkins. According to Wilkins, there were two parcels of land — four hectares of homestead land on Frog Lake Road and a woodlot. “It was 50 acres, more or less, on the Lower Partridge River Road,” which was Frog Lake Road at the time, she said. Wilkins said her Dartmouth lawyer’s research showed that her mother had paid taxes on her land for years. “And I was paying the taxes on it before my mother passed,” Wilkins said. As far as she is concerned, this land dispute with Williams is settled. In October 1997, Wilkins received a certificate of title from her lawyer that stated that her application under the Land Titles Clarification Act had concluded and that the property was hers. That certificate is registered with the Registry of Deeds. “See, my deed said 50 acres, more or less, so 17 acres were gone from my property, ” Wilkins said. Today, she is still under the impression that either Wade Williams stole her 6.8 hectares or the highway went through part of her land. In 1997, Wilkins also discussed with her lawyer the possibility of filing a claim against the Nova Scotia government for expropriating 6.8 hectares of her property for a road back in 1985. “We tried to research it, and we come out with nothing as far as the highway was concerned because they said they had all these people’s deeds and stuff that said they owned that land,” Wilkins said. “Oh, I’ve had a struggle, and it cost me lots of money to claim title, but my mother would roll over in her grave if I had have lost that land.” Williams disputes Wilkins’s allegation that he stole any of her land. But he has decided against fighting her certificate of title. “The Land Titles Clarification Act was set up so that these disputes would have been handled. But government, in its infinite wisdom, changed the rules. Now you basically almost have to dig up the dead if you want to make a land claim.” If Williams wanted to make a claim to try to get the property back under the act, he said he would have to walk the property, find various markings and have to get one of his oldest relatives to confirm the precise location. “That’s not going to happen.”
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 06:19:12 +0000
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