PROPERTY, whether land and/or building, in Malaysia can now be registered in one day- Clearly the Land Offices across the country are working to enhance their delivery system- However, this will not have any impact if the banks, property owners and lawyers do not collect their approved titles from state land offices- Land offices all over the country have reported large volumes of uncollected titles, including some dating back to 1991- Unless submitting parties return to pick up titles upon approval, the shortening of land registration time will further increase the pile-up and reduce the effectiveness of the reforms- The issue of land ownership is one that concerns us deeply because it is related to one of the most basic forms of personal security- The ability to register and transfer land is also central to most economic activity and therefore has to be efficiently and transparently conducted- For this reason, land administration reform was one of the priority areas tackled by Pemudah, the Special Task Force to Facilitate Business- Pemudah established the focus group on registering property to work with 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- Now property registration only takes one working day- This is a significant improvement considering that land registration used to take months, if not, years in some cases- The increase in efficiency is fully measurable by statistical data- From monthly monitoring undertaken by the Pemudah's focus group, performance statistics for Peninsular Malaysia showed a marked improvement- For the month of January 2011, 97-9 per cent of all transactions were completed within a day compared with just 39-8 per cent a year earlier- The top performers were Negri Sembilan, Pahang and Perlis- All three states recorded registration of land transfers within one working day in January 2011- This achievement is the result of a combination of measures to remove obsolete requirements and streamline processes- For example, there is no longer a requirement for desk vetting of each application- Instead, a One Piece Flow (OPF) process was introduced in January 2010 to promote automatic registration- To complement the OPF, the land offices also implemented the Single Point of Contact (SPoC) initiative where an application can be submitted together with the required payment at the same counter, thus cutting down transaction time- Each land transfer is completed upon settlement of payment- Concurrently, the cost of registration is kept low at between 1 per cent and 3 per cent of the property value- The impact of these improvements in land administration procedures is not limited to added convenience for buyers and sellers- The greater ease of transfers stimulated a higher rate of transactions, creating a positive knock-on effect on business and industrial activities- This in turn led to higher tax revenue collection for the country in the form of stamp duties and real property gains taxes- The next step for Pemudah's focus group is to introduce more electronic forms in order to reduce processing time of applications- A web-based e-Consent form has been introduced in a pilot programme involving Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Kedah, Perlis, Negri Sembilan, Melaka, Johor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan- This will further facilitate approvals for the applications for transfers- An e-Tanah form has also been introduced to reduce duplications in submissions- Data entered in e-forms can be retrieved easily by processing officers, cutting down data entry time and reducing the margin of error of these additional steps- All information on these procedures and processes are documented in the Third Edition of the Guidebook for Registering Property, now available in soft copy from Pemudah's website- A committee has been set up within the Land Office to tackle issues relating to fraud and forged transactions- It is expected to further contribute to an increase in tax revenue- On legal matters, the National Land Code has been slated for revisions this year- This is an excellent opportunity to simplify and standardise land administrative procedures for all states- The public is encouraged to submit views and suggestions through the Department of Director-General of Lands and Mines website- Datuk Dr Ir Andy Seo is co-chair Pemudah's focus group on registering property and a member of Pemudah-...

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