Deeds racket bared

Shirley Wijesinghe

The Land and Land Development Ministry has succeeded in uncovering an illegal process of preparing fake deeds for state properties in order to sell them as private properties at huge prices in the urban areas where land values are high.

According to Ministry sources, a number of transactions have been reported to the Ministry, in connection with selling of government property to private buyers through these deeds which had been fraudulently prepared by a certain organized group.

It has been revealed that certain officers attached to the respective Land Registry were also directly involved in the fraud.

The Ministry has appealed to the public to be mindful about this racket. It is compulsory to search the successive ownership of lands when preparing deeds.

Public are cautioned to be careful of purchasing land without verifying the authenticity of the deeds and plans.