- 2 years ago
All over the country thousands of prospective home owners are always looking for a deal to suit their pockets.
And in so many cases they are lured by various housing schemes that seem affordable as they are asked to pay a down payment to secure their spaces.
We look at one such housing scheme that left many people out of pocket as they search for the owner of the housing company who seemed to have disappeared with their money almost two years now.
Here's this special two month investigation by Senior Multimedia Investigative Journalist and Producer Mark Bassant and cameraman Brandon Benoit.
And in so many cases they are lured by various housing schemes that seem affordable as they are asked to pay a down payment to secure their spaces.
We look at one such housing scheme that left many people out of pocket as they search for the owner of the housing company who seemed to have disappeared with their money almost two years now.
Here's this special two month investigation by Senior Multimedia Investigative Journalist and Producer Mark Bassant and cameraman Brandon Benoit.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Millions of dollars may have been lost by prospective homeowners who invested in a LBS
00:25 affordable housing project almost two years ago.
00:29 The company's managing director Lorenzo Smith and staff started advertising on Facebook
00:34 in October 2021 about prefabricated homes coming from Europe being sold for $450,000
00:42 supposedly to be erected in central Trinidad on land they were trying to purchase.
00:47 Unlike Wildfire, many prospective homeowners over the next year into 2022 gravitated to
00:53 the Facebook site, keen on cashing in on what they thought was a steal of a deal.
00:59 But a two-month investigation by TV6 News reveals that there appeared to be holes in
01:03 the LBS housing arrangement, although its managing director Lorenzo Smith insists he
01:09 has done nothing wrong, despite the fact that several would-be homeowners still have nothing
01:14 to show after forking out their hard-earned money over the last two years.
01:19 Melissa Sunny Lyle's husband Leon was possibly one of the first people to have made an initial
01:24 payment of $7,500 in October 2021.
01:28 To hold the spot and then to ensure that his spot was secured, he was asked to pay the
01:32 remaining $60,000.
01:33 "The other people, the managers and so on of LBS, they contacted Leon and told him he
01:41 needs to pay the rest of the money, which was $60,000.
01:46 So in total our down payment would have been $67,500."
01:50 "How soon after did he make the $60,000 payment, after the $7,500?"
01:54 "Not long after."
01:56 "Within a week or two?"
01:57 "I would say a month."
02:00 "Within a month."
02:01 Close to 25 people who spoke to TV6 News on and off camera said the benchmark figure to
02:06 secure a lot of land and prefabricated house was $67,500, as evidenced by receipts received
02:13 from some of them.
02:14 A former employer of LBS who worked with LBS from the onset until February 2022 and dealt
02:21 directly with customers' financial transactions, informed us that up to that time at least
02:27 30 people had paid mainly the sum of $67,500.
02:32 Judging from these initial figures, that equals $2,025,000.
02:38 Another employee who left the job in late 2022 indicated that by that time possibly
02:43 close to 60 people had made down payments.
02:46 That would have doubled the figure to $4,050,000.
02:51 Near the end of our investigation, several other people we had not known about initially
02:56 contacted us via Facebook and phone and said that they too had paid down $67,500.
03:03 In one case, a southern businessman made down payments totaling $270,000 on four of the
03:09 lots.
03:10 Shelly Ann Mathlin, a single mother, said she could not contain her excitement when
03:14 she saw the deal advertised and paid in January 2022.
03:18 I had to make a down payment and I went into the office, where they had the office in Chagonas
03:26 at the time.
03:28 Then they told us we can go to the Port of Swin, which we didn't know before, right?
03:32 But anyway, on the 14th, I made a down payment of $40,000.
03:41 And it was for a unit B-104.
03:42 All right?
03:45 I explained to the people what was my situation.
03:49 I was evicted after living in a place for 18 years.
03:54 So I had to get a place as soon as possible.
03:57 Right?
03:58 They said, yes.
04:01 They promised.
04:02 I said, this is going to finish.
04:03 They said it's going to finish by June.
04:06 Maybe the later part.
04:09 That same month, January 2022, a THU official in Tobago announced that LBS Housing was expected
04:15 to partner with them to provide affordable housing for Tobagonians, which we'll get
04:19 to a bit later.
04:21 Glenn Rambisart from Sangregandi said he too bought into the LBS housing dream in July
04:26 2022 after being told about it by a friend.
04:30 The woman who chose not to be identified as this jockey by profession said she also paid
04:35 the $67,500 payment with an assurance that she'd get a three-bedroom house within three
04:41 months.
04:42 And they had a pretty convincing presentation of how we are going about, how the houses
04:49 are going to be built in a set time.
04:51 Right?
04:52 So I went there and I paid my $68,500 and signed a contract and saying that that was
05:01 in June.
05:02 By the way, that was in June.
05:03 They told me that I would get the house in September, June, July, August, September.
05:09 It was supposed to be 90 days.
05:12 How the system worked was that the down payment ensured that the prospective homeowners lot
05:16 and unit was secured and the terms are laid out in the agreement.
05:21 LBS changed the location of the housing development from Pear Road early on, according to Sunny
05:26 Lyle to Warren Road in Canupia in early 2022.
05:30 The owner of this building here at Kathleen Street in St. James confirmed to us that LBS
05:35 housing operated in this space for more than a year.
05:39 It was here that Woodbury homeowners came and paid hefty payments to employees.
05:46 And now they are unable to find these employees and the owner of LBS housing limited.
05:53 Months before units were advertised, the Lorenzo Smith, the managing director of the company,
05:58 gave a resounding assurance in a Facebook post that LBS had encountered problems with
06:03 delays and was now pressing ahead with several developments across the country.
06:08 The company based on our investigations only came into existence in May 2021.
06:13 After months passed in 2022, some people seemed to doubt his word and his statement.
06:20 Several comments of displeased persons who had paid their monies started to surface in
06:23 mid 2022.
06:25 In September 2022, after a few months of silence, LBS sent out this email to many who invested,
06:32 saying they were merely waiting on WASA and TNTEC approvals before pressing forward.
06:37 One month later, the story changed in another email.
06:41 This time they said they were having issues with the land at Warren Road in Canopia, associated
06:46 with the probate of the land to one Mrs Alexander after her husband's death and also it being
06:51 owned by another party, which was supposedly causing the delay.
06:55 LBS even showed images of material in a warehouse in Turkey that was allegedly being shipped
07:00 to Germany and then Trinidad and they told investors on Facebook they were having delays.
07:06 But Kenan Martinez, head of IT services and group technology at the CCN group, who checked
07:11 on the LBS links, told TV6 News that it appeared "some of the images may have been scraped
07:17 from the internet and some images contain German text, giving the impression of an online
07:23 catalogue showcasing home design layouts.
07:26 I strongly suspect some of these images might have been sourced from a website" that he
07:32 gave us a link to.
07:34 But there's another twist to this story.
07:36 This land in Warren Road, Canopia and documents LBS purportedly showed wasn't even owned
07:42 by the individuals the company claimed were the owners, as a visit to the neighbours next
07:47 door by TV6 News last month confirmed it belonged to their aunt, Thyroon Doman.
07:53 They said they had seen people taking photos of the place last year but weren't sure of
07:57 the purpose.
07:58 Doman, in a telephone interview, said she owned the land since 1974 and it was never
08:03 for sale.
08:04 She also told us that no one ever contacted her about the sale of the land.
08:08 "As I said, I divided it among my children because I would have liked to live there but
08:17 when we were little we used to go in the garden and work right there, you know.
08:22 So it has a lot of sentimental value for me.
08:28 I wouldn't sell it.
08:30 But as I was working in San Fernando it didn't make sense commuting that distance every day
08:40 and so I lived in salt, right?
08:43 Right.
08:44 Yes, so I have given it to my children."
08:52 More after this break with the Housing Hoax investigation.
08:56 Stay tuned.
08:56 [music]
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