Look here nuh peeps, if you've been faithfully paying mortgage on a house in Jamaica for years, you may be under the impression that the house is yours. Well, as I'm now discovering to my utter dismay, nutten nuh really guh suh!

Yes, you have a certified copy of the title with your legal name on it. But stay deh. If you're an ignoramus like me and think that means you actually own the house, you're making a sad mistake. Trust me, as mi live, a so mi learn, and I'm learning some startling lessons. You see, I foolishly thought I bought a house built by West Indies Home Contractors [WIHCON] under a mortgage loan arrangement being serviced by National Housing Development Corporation [NHDC]. NHDC later morphed into Housing Agency of Jamaica [HAJ] to whom the mortgage payments are being currently made.

very strange

I'm now trying to pay off the principal balance and end my relationship with Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ), but it's proving to be quite a challenge. I figured it would be simple. Just pay them whatever amount I currently owe on the account and collect the original title. I figured wrong!

After weeks of trying, I discover that the title for the property is at the National Housing Trust [NHT]. Naturally, I found that very strange. NHT was never part of the equation before. I never got the house through NHT, never borrowed any money from NHT, and never had any arrangement or discussion with NHT. How dem get di title?

When I asked the nice lady at HAJ how come NHT have my title when I have no dealings with them, she casually pointed out me that it was not my dealings, but HAJ dealings that caused NHT to have the title. My confusion was compounded. That's when I learned that Housing Agency of Jamaica can, and has been using the title of people's houses to access money from the National Housing Trust. And they're apparently under no obligation to even inform, much less get approval from we the people who are paying mortgage on said houses.

innocent confusion

I was shocked. Ignorance is not bliss! The lovely lady at HAJ chuckled at my innocent confusion as she went on to gently inform me that basically, even if you're fully paid up for twenty three years out of a twenty five year mortgage with them, once there's any balance owing, HAJ still technically owns the property and are free to use it as they did, as collateral to get money from NHT. Something can guh suh?

The folks at Scotiabank in Canada have a home loan advertising with the tagline 'own a home, not a mortgage'. It's just now making sense to me. If we understand the etymology of the word mortgage though, we'd see why. The term 'mortgage' comes from two Old French words 'mort', which means dead and 'gage', which means pledge. And according to thefreedictionary.com, the late great English jurist Sir Edward Coke explained that the meaning derives from the doubtfulness about whether or not the mortgagor will pay the debt.

If the mortgagor does not, then the property pledged to the 'mortgagee' as security for the debt is taken from him forever, and is therefore dead to the mortgager. And if the money is paid, then the pledge is dead as to the mortgagee.

Yes people, mortgage literally means 'dead pledge'. And no matter how long and faithfully you service it, technically, yuh still jus' ah kotch pon eye lash. Imagine, I can pay HAJ everything I owe them right now, but I can't claim my title until they pay NHT [maybe next two weeks time, dem say]. So yeah, you're paying for the knife, but you don't own it. The company that has the mortgage holds the handle, while you who are paying the mortgage just barely hold the blade.

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