Legal firms urged to collect registered land titles

SHAH ALAM: Legal firms are urged to check with the land office in their respective states whether the titles of their client's properties were ready for collection, said Pemudah Focus Group On Registering Property Chairman, Datuk Dr Ir Andy Seo Kian Haw.

Currently, there are piles of registered land or property titles in the land office and this development was more serious in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor
where the bulk of land and property transaction took place in the country, he told a press conference, here on Monday, Aug 23.

He said the surge in completed registered land titles was due to the various initiatives taken by the Office of the Director-General of Land and Mines to improve the service delivery of land administration in all states and district land offices to speed up land transactions.

Director-General of Land and Mines Datuk Abdul Halim Ain said that there was a backlog of 4 million title applications in 2004 but now it was almost 100% cleared. 

Dr Seo said this was because the registration of land or property transfer could be done in one day instead of 41 days previously.

"Despite the successful improvements made by the land office, they are instead facing another critical problem, that is delays in collecting registered
title by lawyers from the land office," he said.

Deputy Director (Registration) of Selangor Land and Mines Department Kamarulzaman Jamil told the press conference that there were 15,620 registered land titles that had not been collected up to 2008.

Some of the registered land titles dated back to 2001, he said. 

He said his department had proposed to the state government to impose storage charge for late collection of registered land titles at the land office in the state at RM100 after seven days.

Secretary-General of National House Buyers Association, Chang Kim Loong said hopefully the land office could issue a letter to the respective lawyers
regarding the completed registered land title and 'carbon copied' it to the financing bank in order to speed up the registered land title collection.

Pemudah is a special task force comprising representatives of the private and public sectors that was formed with the objective of spearheading the
formulation and implementation of measures to enhance public service delivery and improve Malaysia's business environment.

The task of PEMUDAH focus group on property registry is to address various issues in registering property such as registration of leasehold, strata title and fraud cases and public complaints. -- Bernama