Edited by JONATHAN ROBERTS
Assisted by CHRISTOPHER CHAN
Christopher Chan, Associate Director and Registered Estate Agent with Hartamas Real Estate Group.
IN a recent Propwall REN (real estate negotiator) day held at Menara Star, keynote speaker Christopher Chan spoke on the history of land ownership in this country from Pre-British times to the present; the National Land Code and the indefeasibility of title; tenure of land; Malay Reserve Land; types of titles, categories of land use; extension of leasehold land in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur and the issues in transferring of property from bumiputra to non-bumiputra.
The history of land ownership in this country began with customary land tenure where any person who carried out a task of clearing waste land was entitled to occupy it provided he cultivated it and gave one-tenth of the produce to the State.
When the British arrived, they introduced privately executed deeds and later on we adopted the Torrens system of land registration from Australia.
The main land law in peninsula Malaysia today is the National Land Code (NLC). Sabah and Sarawak have their own land laws too: Sabah Land Ordinance and the Sarawak Land Code respectively.
Enshrined in the Torrens system of land registration is the concept of indefeasibility of title, which means "once an interest is registered, it is good against the whole world".
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Land can be either one of the following:
> Freehold which is held in perpetuity; and
> Leasehold which can be for a term of usually 30, 60 or 99 years. Upon expiration of the lease, there are provisions under the law for the extension of lease.
The sale and lease of Malay Reserve Land is strictly restricted to Malay individuals or corporations only. This is governed under the Malay Reservations Enactment (F.M.S. Cap 142) for Federal Territory, Negri Sembilan, Selangor, Perak and Pahang. This was created under the British Colonial Policy in 1913.
Titles can be either an individual title (Issue Document of Title) issued under the National Land Code 1965 or Strata Title issued out under the Strata Titles Act 1985. Individual titles are for landed properties such as houses, land that are commonly not multi storey whereas strata title is commonly issued for multi-storey buildings but since 2007 has been extended to even houses in gated and guarded communities.
When an individual title is first issued, it is a provisional (or qualified) title. After a final survey has been done, a final title will then be issued.
The same title can be under the jurisdiction of Registry of Land Titles ("Registry title") or under the jurisdiction of the Land Office ("Land Office title").
The provisions for the extension of leasehold land in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur can be found in the NLC.
For Selangor, the formula for the calculating the premium for the extension of lease can be found in Selangor Land Rules 2003 and Selangor Quarry Rules 2003.
In Kuala Lumpur, it can be found in Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur Land Rules 1995.
When transferring properties from bumiputra to non-bumiputra in the secondary market, the vendor may face challenges in obtaining the approval from the state authorities to do so.
This is because the state government is looking after the welfare of the bumiputra community in ensuring that, among other reasons, they are proportionately represented in a particular area.
Christopher Chan has written a comprehensive series on Land Title that can be found on Propwall.my.
The article is first published in StarProperty.my pullout on Nov 2. Download StarProperty.my e-Mag(bit.ly/StarProperty_Emag) to read more.
