The States and its tenants, Belmiro de Freitas and Manuela Walter, are discussing a deal to settle their battle over the payment of six-figure legal fees run up during eviction proceedings last year.
Further expensive court action has been paused after Policy & Resources instructed officials to get back around the negotiating table in a bid to draw a line under another property dispute, just weeks after settling a decade-long struggle with the Allez family at Fort Richmond headland.
‘We are having constructive conversations with the tenants of the Fermain Cafe,’ said P&R president Lindsay de Sausmarez.
‘We are hopeful that this situation can be amicably agreed without further court involvement, and the relationship positively reset going forward for the remainder of the current tenancy.’
In September, the Royal Court granted Mr de Freitas and Ms Walter a three-year stay of eviction, allowing them to remain at the cafe until 2028.
At that time, P&R said it would try to recover its costs of the proceedings from the tenants, having run up a bill with a local law firm which was known to be well over £100,000. It was estimated that those costs could double if court action was continued.
Deputy de Sausmarez appeared to open the door to a more amicable outcome in November when she told a Scrutiny hearing that her committee would have taken a less bullish approach had it been in office when eviction proceedings were launched in 2024.
Then a court hearing scheduled for 12 January was called off at short notice, after which questions submitted by the Guernsey Press to P&R went unanswered until Deputy de Sausmarez explained her committee’s revised thinking in her latest update statement in the States Assembly yesterday.
The dispute started nearly two years ago when the lease for the cafe was put out to tender.
It was eventually awarded to another operator, but Mr de Freitas and Ms Walter refused to move out and have continued summer trading since then.
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