U.S. Virgin Islands law & politics
With the continuing tight credit markets and potential buyers still having difficulty obtaining financing, sellers of property in the Virgin Islands may consider providing financing to the buyer. This is typically achieved with either an installment sales contract or a traditional note and mortgage.
Lisa is part of our litigation department and has been with the firm—and back on island—for just over a year. She returned to St. Thomas from Miami where she attended the University of Miami School of Law, graduating with honors. While she was in law school, Lisa was on the Dean’s List, a law review editor, and a member of the Moot Court Board. After four and half years of practicing in Miami, Lisa decided to return to St. Thomas, where she grew up, to be closer to her parents.
After Lisa graduated from law school, she began practicing law in Miami with a boutique litigation firm handling cases in both state and federal court which primarily involved employment discrimination, insurance coverage, misuse of intellectual property, premises liability and breach of commercial contracts and leases. Lisa then moved to a large national firm and continued to work on insurance coverage and breach of contract cases, including class actions, and also began to handle some real property and securities litigation.
Forcible Entry and Detainer (“FED”) actions are governed by title 28, sections 751 through 794 of the Virgin Islands Code. Virgin Islands Port Authority v. Joseph, 2008 WL 2329281 (V.I.,2008). These sections provide for summary adjudication of a limited class of simple eviction proceedings. As described by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in C.M.L., Inc. v. Dunagan:
The Virgin Islands Code provides an action for forcible entry and detainer as a peaceful alternative to the often violent consequences of property owners exercising their right of self-help. Suarez v. Christian, 19 V.I. 1586 (D.V.I.1981). In exchange for revoking their right of repossession by force, the statute provides a simple summary proceeding, with time requirements substantially shorter than those provided in ordinary civil actions and with the issues sharply restricted. In such a summary proceeding, a property owner under certain specified circumstances, can quickly receive a judicial declaration of his right of occupancy and an order directing the marshal to remove the defendant and restore possession to the property owner. Where a tenant is retaining possession by force, relief is available in a summary FED proceeding only if there “is an undisputed oral or written lease agreement, and rent is due and owing thereon; or [t]here is an undisputed oral or written lease which has expired.” Conversely, “a FED cause of action will not lie where [t]itle to the premises is in question; or [w]here there is proved to the Court to exist a bona fide question of the existence of a lease at law or in equity, which has not yet expired.” Inter Car Corp. v. Discount Car Rental, 21 V.I. 157, 159 (Terr.Ct.1984).
Id. (citing, C.M.L., Inc. v. Dunagan, 904 F.2d 189, 190-91 (3d Cir.1990)) (paragraph indention omitted).
Continue Reading Eviction: A Peaceful Alternative to Self-Help
Your Very Own Wikileaks Scandal
Prior to the tragic shooting in Arizona, the airwaves were dominated with the Wikileaks saga, and the brouhaha caused by the release of classified diplomatic cables. The real damage caused by the leaked cables does not appear to be the unmasking of top secret, cloak-and-dagger spy novel stuff. The damage, it appears, is that other nations suddenly became privvy to what our government and our diplomatic officers think about them.
Often time buyers and/or sellers enter into a contract for the purchase of real estate without fully considering the ramifications. Whether pushed by their own financial situation or other outside factors, a person hastily entering in to a contract without fully understanding their rights and obligations can lead to unforeseen consequences.
The Local Rules of Civil Procedure for the District Court of the Virgin Islands require that litigants exclude or redact "personal data identifiers from all documents filed with the Court, including exhibits[.]" LRCi 5.4(l)(1). The list of personal data identifiers to be redacted includes "financial account numbers." LRCi 5.4(l)(1)(D). The Rule is silent on whether redaction is necessary for information that has already been made public.
Continue Reading Does Redacting Public Documents Make Sense?
On December 1, 2010, the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. One recipient of the Advisory Committee’s ministrations was Rule 56, which received its most thorough overhaul since the rule was first drafted in 1938.
As a family law practitioner in the Territory, I have found all too often that when looking to the Virgin Islands Code for specific guidelines, procedures and criteria to assist in proceeding in various domestic matters, that our local family code of laws leaves much room for improvement.
Continue Reading Virgin Islands Family Code Leaves Room For Improvement
The Virgin Islands Bureau of Internal Revenue (“BIR”) recently announced a 90 day gross receipts tax amnesty, which will expire on January 25, 2011. The amnesty was signed into law in October and allows businesses to file delinquent gross receipts tax returns with the BIR and pay any outstanding balances due without having to pay penalties and interest.
Continue Reading Virgin Islands 90 Day Gross Receipt Amnesty
In what labor and employment lawyers, legal scholars, and union officials are calling a ground-breaking case, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has for the first-time filed a complaint to protect the rights of employees to express their opinions, with co-workers, about supervisors and employers on social network sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. The NLRB’s complaint specifically argues that a company cannot fire an employee for criticizing a supervisor online to co-workers.
Continue Reading Do Virgin Islands’ Employees Have The Right to Criticize Supervisors on Facebook?
