{"id":105235,"date":"2020-08-03T16:56:14","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T23:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105235"},"modified":"2020-08-03T16:56:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T23:56:36","slug":"the-sri-lankan-e-register-should-be-governed-by-a-law-suitable-to-sri-lanka-and-not-by-the-foreign-law-called-title-registration-as-recommended-by-the-mcc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/03\/the-sri-lankan-e-register-should-be-governed-by-a-law-suitable-to-sri-lanka-and-not-by-the-foreign-law-called-title-registration-as-recommended-by-the-mcc\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sri Lankan e register should be governed by a law suitable to Sri Lanka and not by the foreign law called Title Registration as recommended by the MCC"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Senior Lawyer \u2013E MAIL\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

srilankastudycircle@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

Congratulation\nto  Ms Shenali Waduge, she has studied the\nAct 21 of 1998 and explained the legal implications of Title Registration [also\ncalled Bim Saviya].  Yes many learned   members\nof our society  argue that  foreign funding,   foreign laws and technology  should be accepted with gratitude. They\nbelieve that once we introduce technology and foreign laws  we will \nbe on par with developed nations.   Sadly\nthis is akin to seeing a duck smoothly \ngliding  along the water without seeing\nthe paddling underneath . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\ncountries are  where they are,  with e registration as a result of on going legal\nresearch,  with 3 decades of legal reform\nby their learned professors of law.  Sri Lanka has had no such legal\nreform prior to entering into technology for land registries. Sri Lanka does\nnot have a single legal book on E registration and Property law,  land registration methods and Electronic\nconveyancing . The subjects are not even thought of being  introduced   into the\n legal education programs.  We totally depend on   foreign\nfunding agencies and foreign  advice to\nchange our land policy and land laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How long  will it take to introduce a foreign law [Title\nRegistration   Bim Saviya ] to manage the e  register?  <\/strong>In\n1998 on the advice of the  World\nBank,   without any  notice to lawyers and the public the  Government introduced the  land  law\npracticed in Australia and New Zealand called Bim Saviya.\n <\/strong>The assumption wasthat\nthe land law practiced for over 100 years in \nSri Lanka  could be changed to  Bim Saviya \nwithin a period of 15  years.  A\nprocess called \u2018 First Registration\u2019 commenced   to\nchange the law of the country. For this process the  government officials without any legal\nknowledge were appointed to  investigate and\nadjudicate ownership to 20 Million blocks of land and to  enter the names of owners in a Bim Saviya\nregister. http:\/\/bimsaviya.landmin.gov.lk\/<\/a> .According\nto the government reports the process was  a failure, and  only 0.72 Million blocks were  completed for the past 20 years  out of 20 Million blocks of land at a heavy   unaffordable cost to the Government . [ see Performance Report of Commissioner\nGeneral   2018 report]   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Mahinda Rajapakse appointed a\ncommittee to look into the serious situation created by Bim Saviya.   <\/strong>President Mahinda Rajapakse appointed a\ncommittee known as the Samarasekera Committee to look into the serious situation\ncreated by Bim Saviya, specifically relating to the adjudication process  of 20 Million owners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Committee report  explains as follows —— The Bim Saviya law\npermits only one owner per block of land .   When\nthe government embarks upon the adjudication process to  investigate  title of persons peacefully in  possession,  it is inevitable  that disputes  will arise amongst those who owned land in  co-ownership and  lived  peacefully\nin  possession with the application of\ninheritance laws and personal  laws. Major\ntask is to select one person amongst the co-owners to be registered in the Bim\nSaviya register. The report points out  that the  imposition of compulsory registration in this\nmanner will create thousands of land disputes which are now dormant.  After 20 years, the  Samarasekera report has been proved correct.\nThe  attempt to adjudicate ownership\naccording  to Bim Saviya had failed  and 1.9 Million disputes are  presently on record says the   Performance Report of Commissioner General. https:\/\/www.parliament.lk\/uploads\/documents\/paperspresented\/performance-report-land-title-settlement-department-2018.pdf<\/a>]      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bim Saviya, a law favourable to Fraudsters\n.<\/strong>Under the Bim\nSaviya, once ownership of a property is registered in the e register , the\ntitle is \u2018indefeasible\u2019 or cannot be challenged. That means once your name is\non the title register to a property, you are the legal owner even if you acquired the property through\nfraud.  <\/strong>The owner has no legal  remedy. \nThe remedy available is to obtain compensation for the loss from the\nGovernment Assurance fund. This is the basic feature of the Australian law called\nTorrens law \/ Title registration or Bim Saviya in Sri Lanka.\n <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

E register does not prevent fraud —<\/strong>USA  demonstrated that the  benefit of e registration  is only \nspeed of registration and that an e register will not prevent fraud.   New York Daily\nNews,  prepared  a bogus deed \nto sell the popular  Empire State\nBuilding to Nelots Properties and sent to the land registry.  The land registry  upon receipt of the phony documents  registered the deed in 90 minutes . . https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/money\/90-minutes-daily-news-steal-empire-state-building-article-1.353477<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can the Government Pay  compensation to land fraud victims under Bim\nSaviya law <\/strong>The applicability\nof Torrens law \/ Bim Saviya would have permitted  Nelots\nProperties, LLC. to retain ownership of the building and the Empire State Land Associates  owner of the building would have to be\nsatisfied with compensation  from the\nGovernment .  \nCan the Sri Lanka Government  pay\ncompensation under Bim Saviya to those affected by fraud in lieu of court\nprocedure?  The law is given in the Bim\nSaviya Act 21 of 1998 in Section 60  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language in Land registries<\/strong> <\/strong>Section 4.1 of MCC says all\ndocuments & communications are to be in English and they will manage    10\nregistries in 7 districts .  The  administration of land registries in the\ncountry are managed in  Sinhala and\nTamil.  There are Sinhala and Tamil\nNotaries who work only in Sinhala and Tamil. \nWe have a language policy a fare percentage of the country can read and\nwork only in Sinhala and Tamil   Can the\ncomputers record  in the local languages or\nis it English only ?   Can all notaries\nbe provided with computers and internet facilities ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MCC Recommends Bim Saviya\nwhich is unsuitable. <\/strong>Title\nregistration [ Bim Saviya] has been recommended \nfor the Land Project .  Lands that\nare to be privatised with the operation of the Land Privatisation Act  to be governed by Title Registration–[MCC Annex 1 \u2013 30, ] The  MCC Land Project to funds  10 land registries in 7 districts to\ninvest  in Bim Saviya for the e\nregister.  [Annex 1 \u201331 ] However\naccording to Annex\n1\u201421 t the intended beneficiaries for 20 years will be only  five million individuals.   How long can the country wait to enact  a law for the e  register , it can be over 100 years and what\nwould be the cost ?    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

E register should be  administered with the Deed registration\nsystem and not with Bim Saviya <\/strong>  The manner in which the e register is introduced\nwithout considering the law to manage the register  is alarming . Foreign law is considered   without informing the public or allowing\nlawyers to participate  in the process of\nchange. Government must pay attention to\nthe  statute which  introduced technology  to the country  namely Section 23 of the  Electronic Transaction Act 19 of 2006 which\nrequires deeds .  Section 23 of the Act\nspecifically  requires paper deeds for\nwills, Power of Attorney  and  land sales [Bim Saviya repeals the\ndeeds]   Registrar  has pointed out that almost all the lands;  8.5 Million blocks will be soon on the e\nregister governed by the deed registration system ,  why convert to Bim Saviya  a foreign law at a heavy cost.  The Registrar General says there is no\nproblem in continuing with the deed system, \naccording to him  the fraud\nprevention laws recommended by the Central Bank and the Ministry of Justice are\nessential to manage the integrity of the e register .  The Government has  recently  enacted the fraud prevention laws under the\nTrusts (Amendment) Act No. 6 of 2018 for Trust deeds  only , the   law  has   to be extended to all land transactions to\nprevent fraud.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Majority\nof the states in USA are  reluctance to\naccept Bim Saviya  [Torrens law] to\nadminister the e register.  Their  main concern is  that the \nowners do not have the fundamental right to access court when affected\nby land fraud and land fraud is extremely pervasive in USA. They have a similar\nlaw as the deed registration system with modern \nlaws to prevent fraud<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Senior Lawyer \u2013E MAIL\u00a0 srilankastudycircle@yahoo.com Congratulation to  Ms Shenali Waduge, she has studied the Act 21 of 1998 and explained the legal implications of Title Registration [also called Bim Saviya].  Yes many learned   members of our society  argue that  foreign funding,   foreign laws and technology  should be accepted with gratitude. They believe that once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}