CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012 8:33AM EDT
Members of an Ottawa family are fighting for compensation over 300 acres of land that they say was wrongfully taken from their grandmother decades ago.
The Hannas say they have documents to support the claim that the land, currently home to 450 houses and a public school, belongs to them.
Once farmland, the land in the city's west-end is now worth an estimated $2 billion.
Doug Hanna said he discovered that the land belonged to his grandmother Gladys during a conversation with his cousin a few years ago.
“After my aunt had passed away, I went over to visit my cousin,” Hanna told CTV Ottawa. “He turned around and said ‘Mom says we still own the land.’”
Following that discussion, Hanna spent three years unearthing document after document that appeared to support the claim.
Hanna’s great-grandfather was one of many Irish immigrants in the area, settling in Munster.
His grandfather Lewis died in 1945, leaving his widow a large swath of land.
Just five years later, the land was gone.
Hanna has unearthed a number of discrepancies on documentation about the land. The inconsistencies range from misspelled or incorrect names, to signatures on papers that were drafted after that person had died.
One document says Gladys sold a quarter-acre of her land in 1950 for $35,000 to pay her taxes. Another says a man claiming to be the executor of her husband’s estate sold a quarter-acre for $50 later that same year.
The discrepancies prompted Hanna to contact lawyer Elise Hallewick.
“It seemed like such a wrong had been committed here,” Hallewick said.
According to Hallewick, the Hannas can’t sue anyone, because the people who are suspected of taking the land have died.
Instead, they are going through the government’s Land Titles Assurance Fund.
“They don’t expect to bankrupt the province or get anywhere close to a couple billion dollars,” Hallewick said. “But they do deserve some kind of compensation.”
Hallewick says the family is ready to bring the case to the Ontario Superior Court.
For his part, Doug Hanna says he’s willing to keep up the fight.
“This is our land, this is our home,” he said. “This is where I want to go.”
With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Joanne Schnurr
