Driver (2002) estimated that 47 per cent of households in Trinidad and Tobago have improper title and 5 5 per cent of farmers have no proof of land ownership. Faizool (2002) noted that increasing socio-economic pressures have been accompanied by an increase in squatting especially on the upper slopes of the western half of the Northern Range, both on private and state-owned lands. One reason for the malfunctioning of the market is the failure of land-use planning to release land for development in the right place and at the right time, thus creating artificial land shortages that drive land values up and beyond the reach of the poor to purchase land.