The Old House in French Quarter is part of three lots to be sold at Auction on May 13. (Les Fruits de Mer photo)
MARIGOT--The court-appointed administrator, Charles Henri Carboni, in charge of settling the Beauperthuy estate in St. Martin, has broken his silence to Guadeloupe Premier to denounce certain “untruths” that he describes as “a truncated and erroneous presentation of the facts” stated by the Collectivité during the initial furor surrounding the planned auction of three plots of the Beauperthuy estate set for May 13, 2024.
While the Collectivité has made it clear it wishes to acquire all the remaining 26 plots of the Beauperthuy estate, amounting to several hundred hectares, the administrator said an offer from the Collectivité was expected as early as October 2023 but never formulated.
Carboni has taken issue with the claims made by President of the Collectivité Louis Mussington and asserts that “in no way has he betrayed or insulted the President by his actions,” and indirectly the people of St. Martin, by taking over the sale of the assets at auction.
He explained that this choice was made in response to the “silence” of the Collectivité whose lawyers have been contacted on numerous occasions in recent weeks and even months, to no avail.
According to Carboni, court rulings from 1985 to 1989 recognise the rights of all Beauperthuy heirs.
“I have been appointed since 1991 to ensure that the Beauperthuy estate is settled according to these court rulings which have long since been final and known to Beauperthuy heirs in St. Martin since they or their parents were parties to these proceedings,” he stated.
“In this context, given the nature of the inheritance, the opinion of the St. Martin community has always been taken into consideration so that transactions can be carried out under good understanding. Indeed, as early as February 2023, President Louis Mussington announced his intention to acquire all the remaining parcels of this estate.
He continued: “At the meeting of February 22, 2023, and following this intention to buy back the land, I had indicated that I was not opposed to this buy-back, and even in favour of it, provided of course that it was done in compliance with the law, and in particular public law, with the agreement of the heirs, or the majority of them, and on condition of a Court decision authorising this sale, since normally the previous decisions ordered an auction sale.”
All that remained was to determine the sale price. A panel of three legal experts was appointed for this purpose. They arrived at an average value of 42 million euros.
“This amount is not the result of an unfounded demand by the heirs,” Carboni explained. “In any case, this is the sum expected by the heirs. The 38 million euros indicated to the press by the Collectivité corresponds to the maximum amount estimated by its advisors.”
The Collectivité is said never to have materialised its intention to purchase by letter, as requested by the administrator. The deadline initially set for December 31, 2023 was postponed to the end of January 2024, without effect, despite Louis Mussington’s undertakings, Carboni indicated.
“It was only on April 2, 2024, i.e. after more than two months of silence on your part, I was informed that the Collectivité still intended to buy back the land from the Beauperthuy estate, while I had just begun selling the plots. Faced with the silence, the auction procedure was relaunched.
“It is therefore unacceptable, for the administrator of the estate, for the Beauperthuy heirs, but also for the people of St. Martin, that the facts should be presented in a truncated and erroneous manner and that today the people of St. Martin should be called upon to demonstrate by the President himself, without knowing the reality of the facts when the present situation resulted from his failure to respect his commitments,” Carboni concluded. ( Credit: Nadine Fadel-Guadeloupe Premier)
