In a public notice published on Sunday the 21st of April 2019, the Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning stated that a new property registration process had been implemented at the Registry of Lands. This new process is expected to shorten the period of registering interests in land to 12 days (down from the average of between 1 to 3 months). The process is very similar to the current registration process and has 3 simple steps; these are as follows:
Step 1: Application for land rent clearance certificates, consent to charge/lease/transfer and valuation.
These applications should be submitted through the online e-citizen platform and manual applications will no longer be required. Further, a unified application form to apply for the necessary consents and clearances simultaneously is now available.
Step 2: Valuation of the property in question
The Government Valuer visits the property for valuation purposes and subsequently issues a report.
Step 3: Registration of the title and other instruments.
The interest in land (lease/charge/transfer) is then registered at the relevant Registry and that registration is recorded on the title of the property in question (or a new title is issued depending on the nature of the transaction).
The new registration process and ongoing digitisation of land records are both in line with the Government’s commitment to streamline land registration processes and improve efficiency in service delivery. However, we do expect that there will be teething problems as this process is rolled out.
