Senators passed a bill yesterday to clamp down on “fronting” — the scam where trusts are used to buy property for foreigners who are not legally entitled to own it.

However some Senators fear it will also hamper the rights of Bermudians married to foreigners to buy more than one property. Introducing the Bill junior Labour and Immigration Minister Wayne Caines said it had become increasingly difficult for Bermudians to achieve their dream of acquiring a piece of their rock as non-Bermudians illegally muscled in on the market.

Government believes the vast majority of land trusts are innocent but Sen. Caines said it was possible around 200 properties were held in illegal trusts.

The Bermuda Immigration and Protection Amendment Act 2007 will enhance the powers of the Chief Immigration Officer to require people to produce documents relating to land trusts.

A version of the Bill had been tabled in the last session of Parliament but was withdrawn when it was realised a proposed register of land trusts could damage the Island’s trust business.

A host of amendments were then added to the resubmitted bill which passed in the House earlier this month.

Opposition Senator Kim Swan said the bill was “well intentioned, confusing and discriminatory”.

He derided Government for saying it had acted swiftly on the problem of fronting when he pointed out his United Bermuda Party colleague Trevor Moniz had raised the issue in questions to the House seven years ago and had been fobbed off by Government saying it was a very difficult problem to crack. Sen. Swan said: “What we have here today is the foot of an elephant being used to crush a nut.”

Now an election was around the corner the Government were keen to push ahead. He said it was discriminatory as Bermudians married to non-Bermudians could potentially be worse off than purely Bermudian couples when it came to the property market.

Sen. Swan asked: “Where would our gene pool be if we didn’t venture out a little bit?”

Foreigners are generally restricted to high end property and some condos. The new law allows a local/foreign couple to own one property but the foreign spouse’s name cannot be on any more properties — until that person completes ten year’s of marriage and gets Bermudian status.

However Government Senator Kim Wilson said there was a consensus action had to be taken against those abusing the Island’s property law and making it more difficult to buy a piece of the rock.

She said if action wasn’t taken now more property would be lost to the market while Government would lose out of millions of lost revenue from licensing fees levied on foreigners buying real estate legitimately.

She said the Bermudian/non-Bermudian couple merely had to wait to sign property into joint ownership. The Bermudian spouse could buy extra property which could be signed into joint ownership once the marriage had lasted a decade and the other spouse had been given status.

However UBP Senator Bob Richards said any bank lending money would want to have both spouses’ money taken into account before sanctioning any lending as he pointed out that investing in property was common in Bermuda.

However Senator Caines explained non-Bermudian spouses could help with the mortgage with the permission of the Minister. Many of the Senators expressed confusion on understanding the Bill.

Independent Senator Walwyn Hughes, who spent years in the highest levels of Government before enjoying a long stint in the Upper House, said: “I can’t tell you how many hours I have spent reading and re-reading it but it looks like chicken scratchings to me.”

And he too feared the bill could be creating unintended problems for Bermudians wedded to expatriates and it was important to be fair and reasonable. “Don’t just say we can come back and fix it.”

Government Senate Leader David Burch said a number of red herrings had been raised but the main point was to if the law was being broken then Government was duty-bound to enforce it — even if the legislation needed to be amended many times.