Three separate Housing Development Corporation policy announcements by Chairman Feeroz Khan were publicly disavowed by Housing Minister David Lee. Each time, the minister's response followed the same pattern: he was "not aware."
The first was a plan to regularise approximately 1,000 squatters occupying $500 million worth of HDC units. The second was the introduction of new 10% and 5% transfer and inheritance fees on HDC properties, replacing a $700 flat fee. The third was the revelation that HDC carries what Khan described as roughly $2 billion in total financial exposure - including over $600 million owed to contractors, a $300 million pension fund deficit, $100 million in bank overdrafts exceeding approved limits, and close to $1 billion in questionable receivables.
A chairman who makes policies the minister does not know about, or a minister who claims ignorance of policies made by his chairman - either scenario describes an organisation that is not being governed. What makes it worse is that the Housing Ministry has an unusual three-minister structure. Lee leads, with Senator Phillip Edward Alexander and Anil Roberts as ministers in the ministry. Three ministers, one chairman, and nobody appears to be in charge.
Lee himself was re-arrested in October 2025 on fraud charges - conspiracy to defraud and misbehaviour in public office - related to the importation of a Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 valued at TT$2.34 million. He refused to resign. The PM said "we have confidence in the courts." Junior Minister Anil Roberts returned to cabinet despite presiding over the $349.5 million LifeSport fraud during the UNC's 2010-2015 term. The PNM had its own version: Keith Rowley fired Marlene McDonald from cabinet three times over legal troubles. HDC board patronage, like all state enterprise boards, is bipartisan - whoever wins fills the seats.
The Squatter Crisis
The squatter regularisation controversy began with a specific incident. On December 29, 2025, a couple with children reported to police that strangers had moved into their HDC townhouse at Riverside South, Corinth, near San Fernando - a home they had paid a down payment on but had not yet received keys for. Minister Lee said he would investigate and called a board meeting on January 2, 2026.
Then Chairman Khan announced publicly that the HDC would regularise squatters occupying approximately 1,000 HDC properties. The units have a combined value estimated at $500 million. Lee said he was "caught off-guard" by the announcement and had not been told. He stated that any move to regularise squatters must first go before Cabinet - and none had.
The HDC's waiting list contains over 100,000 applicants, with figures as high as 214,000 cited at various points. These are Trinbagonians who applied through the official process and are waiting for housing they were told would come through proper channels. Over the past decade, the HDC built only 4,000 homes. Lee himself called that record "a failure of delivery." Regularising 1,000 squatters while over 100,000 applicants wait sends a specific message about which method of obtaining housing actually works.
The plan was placed "on hold." What happened to the 1,000 squatters in the interim - whether any were evicted, whether the policy is dead or merely sleeping - has not been publicly clarified.
Fees Without Authority
On January 29, 2026, the HDC issued a directive signed by the acting managing director, introducing with immediate effect a 5% fee on transfer of HDC properties to successors upon the death of the owner, a 10% fee on sale of HDC units older than ten years, and an absolute prohibition on transfers within the first ten years. These replaced a long-standing flat administrative fee of $700.
The real-world impact was immediate. A family inheriting an HDC home valued at $400,000 would now need to find $20,000 to transfer the property into their name. For families who obtained HDC housing precisely because they could not afford market-rate alternatives, a five-figure transfer fee could force them to sell the home they inherited.
Minister Lee said he was unaware. Legal analysis published in the Express argued that under Section 43 of the HDC Act, the board may prescribe fees only with the approval of the minister and subject to negative resolution of Parliament. No ministerial approval was obtained. Nothing was laid before Parliament.
The PNM called for Lee's resignation, describing the fee as an "inheritance tax" and demanding that Lee and "his two junior, paid social media troll Ministers" step down. Opposition MP Camille Robinson-Regis clashed with Lee in Parliament, noting that HDC units originally costing $950,000 to $1.1 million were now priced at $1.5 to $1.7 million.
Seventy-two hours after Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar initially endorsed the fees, the policy was reversed. Alexander confirmed the $700 transfer fee remains until talks with the board are completed. Lee ordered an investigation into how the directive was authorised without his knowledge. The investigation's findings have not been made public.
The Scale of What Was Inherited
Khan's public disclosure of HDC's financial exposure went beyond the $600 million owed to contractors. He alleged that under the previous PNM administration, an average of 400 homes were built annually at an estimated market value of $500,000 each, but construction costs escalated to approximately $2 million per unit - a fourfold markup. The HDC launched a "billion-dollar mismanagement probe" examining whether taxpayer money was used to pay off political debts.
The probe has already expanded. The HDC investigated the acquisition of units at the Victoria Keyes development in Diego Martin by three members of St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves' family - his wife Eloise, son Storm, and daughter Soleil. Soleil's "rent to own" agreement was entered into two days after the April 28, 2025 election but before the new government was sworn in. Lee said the probe has widened beyond the Gonsalves matter.
Maintenance contracts told their own story. A contractor was paid $18,000 plus VAT monthly to cut grass on three acres of land in Couva - a job with a market cost of approximately $1,500 to $3,000. Over $150 million in maintenance contracts were given to people closely affiliated with the former administration, totalling approximately $150 million per year. The HDC projects potential savings of $100 million annually through restructuring. The corporation allegedly overpaid contractors and suppliers by more than $20 million over the past decade, including one contractor overpaid by $10 million with no effort made to recover the funds.
Even the HDC's commercial properties were losing money. The corporation owns seven malls near housing developments that generate roughly $1 million annually in rental revenue but cost approximately $10 million per year to maintain - a net loss of $9 million per year, or roughly $100 million over a decade.
The HDC ended contracts with at least 50 maintenance providers by the end of 2025 and did not renew 48 employee contracts. Khan described the HDC as a "sick cow riddled with ticks" - a remark that drew immediate backlash. PNM Chairman Marvin Gonzales called it "demonisation and attack against poor people." Khan later said he intended no disrespect.
The Loan and the Delinquents
Khan's response to the debt crisis was to seek a $1 billion loan from international financiers. He said negotiations were underway in the first quarter of 2026 and described progress as "promising." Whether the loan has been secured and on what terms has not been publicly reported.
There is an irony in that number. The HDC is simultaneously owed approximately $1 billion by delinquent homeowners whose payments have lingered for years. The 2026 budget allocated $200 million for the continuation of the Accelerated Housing Programme and $30 million for rehabilitation and maintenance. The new government has set a target of 20,000 affordable homes over four to five years. Given that only 4,000 were built in the previous ten, the target is ambitious. Khan has indicated the government intends to rely on private sector housing stock alongside HDC construction.
Meanwhile, 332 contracts that expired were all extended rather than re-tendered, despite the Public Procurement and Disposal of Property Act being fully proclaimed in 2023. Whether those contracts have since been competitively re-awarded has not been confirmed.
Who Is Running HDC?
The governance structure is supposed to be clear. The minister sets policy. The board, through the chairman, executes it. What the HDC situation reveals is a structure where the chairman announces policies without ministerial knowledge, the minister disavows them publicly, the Prime Minister briefly endorses them before reversing course, and the affected citizens - the 100,000-plus on the waiting list, the 1,000 squatters, the homeowners facing new fees - have no idea what the rules actually are.
This is not a policy disagreement. It is an absence of governance at the agency responsible for housing in a country where only 4,000 homes were delivered in a decade, construction costs were marked up fourfold, and $150 million a year went to maintenance contracts awarded to political allies.
The question is not whether Lee or Khan is right about any individual policy. The question is whether anyone is actually in charge of the HDC. The evidence, three public disavowals deep, suggests the answer is no.
Sources
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC moving to regularise squatters occupying properties" (December 2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC HIKES FEES" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC hike on hold" (February 2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC launches billion-dollar mismanagement probe" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC probe widens beyond Gonsalves, says Lee" (2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC probes Gonsalves family over Victoria Keyes unit" (2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC to end 50 maintenance contracts, signals more job cuts to come" (2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "Eight managers leaving HDC" (October 2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "Robinson-Regis, Lee clash over HDC purge of Caura clients" (2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC chairman says 'ticks' comment no disrespect to fired workers" (2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "HDC chairman: Govt relying on private housing stock to meet huge demand" (2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "Minister partly blames HDC's $1B debt to contractors on errant tenants"
- Trinidad Express: "Lee was not told about HDC regularisation plan" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "The legal limits on HDC fees" (February 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "PNM calls for Lee's resignation over HDC transfer fees" (2026)
- Trinidad Express: "Decade of failure" (2025)
- Trinidad Express: "Time to fix housing crisis" (2025)
- Trinidad Express: "Who's running the country?" (2026)
- Trinidad Express: "Why the HDC model fails citizens" (2026)
- Newsday: "Lee to investigate Corinth town house squatters" (January 2026)
- Newsday: "HDC commercial tenants: poor management affecting revenue" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "PSA pushes for rehiring of contract workers; HDC defends dismissals" (2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "Housing Minister confirms move to cut HDC contracts" (2025)