Administrator General’s Department to Sell Unclaimed Properties in Downtown Kingston

The Administrator General’s Department (AGD) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kingston Restoration Company (KRC) Limited to facilitate the sale, and/or disposal of 16 properties in downtown Kingston.
Lona Brown, Chief Executive Officer of the AGD, told JIS News that under the agreement, the KRC had the option of retaining the properties for its redevelopment programme or projects.
The AGD is the government agency responsible for the administration of estates of persons who die intestate (without a will) and leave behind children as dependents. The responsibility of the AGD is to act as the financial caregiver of any dependent, under the age of 18, by exercising control of the estate, or business, and seeing to the child’s educational, physical, and material needs.
Mrs. Brown told JIS News that her Department would be proceeding with the sale of the 16 properties in order to generate funds for the estates. This is despite the fact that in several instances, the AGD has been unable to locate the whereabouts of the beneficiaries.
Where the AGD is unable to locate the beneficiaries of the properties, Mrs. Brown said, advertisements are placed in local and foreign newspapers. “We give a time for them to respond, if they don’t, we will go ahead and sell the property,” she pointed out.
She said it was far easier for the department to transfer the properties to the beneficiaries as opposed to selling them, as the properties were situated in areas that were not necessarily in “attractive” commercial or residential neighbourhoods.
The CEO said a timeline of at least six months was given for beneficiaries to contact the AGD before the properties were sold.