Beyond the Budget: How Neglecting the Reserve Study Puts Jolly Harbour Freeholders at Risk

Analyzing the 2025 Maintenance Charge, Deferred Repairs Until 2026, and Why CDAL—Not Owners—Should Foot the Bill for Negligence

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Disclaimer: The information below is for general guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific concerns or situations, please consult an attorney licensed in Antigua and Barbuda.

Original Reserve Advisors Report

Read the complete July 2022 Reserve Study by Reserve Advisors, LLC:

Download Reserve Study Report (PDF)

1. Introduction

Critical Context

CDAL's 2009 Financial Statements and June 2020 Letter of Intent (LOI) reveal that Jolly Harbour's infrastructure is treated as CDAL's corporate assets—not community property. CDAL has historically:

  • Classified roads, seawalls as "investment property" or "property, plant and equipment"
  • Taken depreciation expenses (e.g., "Roads, bridges, yard and seawall - 50 years")
  • Generated direct revenue (e.g., "Seawall revenue," "Land Sales")

Over the past few years, Caribbean Developments (Antigua) Limited (CDAL) has raised Jolly Harbour's monthly community charge (CC) from US$356.50 to US$390 (in 2023 and 2024) and now proposes US$497 for 2025—still with no allocation to the Reserve Fund recommended by the July 2022 Reserve Advisors Study ("the Study"). Under both Antiguan law and established British common law precedents on service charges, a developer or management company is obligated to ensure essential infrastructure is properly funded. Charges to freeholders should only be for services "to and for the benefit" of their respective parcels, not for catching up on the developer's own years of under-maintenance.

The Study expressly stated that from 2023 to 2025, Jolly Harbour needed multi-million-dollar "catch-up" repairs to address neglected sewage lines, generators, and seawalls. By deferring these urgent repairs to 2026 and beyond, Jolly Harbour compounds 3% annual inflation and a heightened risk of catastrophic system failures. Meanwhile, instead of CDAL paying for its own negligence, the "new owners" of CDAL have merely offered an "interest-free loan" of US$800,000 "to the community"—although no legal definition of "community" exists to cover developer mismanagement. Under Antiguan and British legal standards, such neglected obligations typically rest on the developer, not the freeholders. Owners must decide whether to pay significantly more now to align with the Reserve Study (and avoid meltdown-level special assessments later) or gamble with minimal short-term savings that could trigger massive emergency fees if major failures occur.

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