Protecting land owners from land fraud
Keerthimala Gunasekera Attorney-at-Law
With the end of the crippling three decade war, Sri Lanka embarks on
two new fronts in its war on land fraudsters and its war on ideas to
prevent land fraud. In many developing countries land fraud is becoming
a major threat to land ownership; the increasing incidence of white
collar crimes, the theft of identity cards and the substitution of
legitimate documents with forged documents has resulted in landowners
being physically dispossessed of their land and their names replaced in
the land registers by the fraudsters.
Sri Lanka has taken a revolutionary steps to arrive at the threshold
of the ‘electronic transaction era’ when in 1998 the Land Titles Act (Bim
Saviya) was passed and when 2006the Electronic Transaction Act was
passed. These two laws represent the greatest upheaval in property law;
the centuries old methods of transacting land and exercising property
rights will change; to support a modern private sector led economy.
Boundary disputes
The Electronic Transactions Act 19 of 2006 has given legal
recognition to electronic documents, transactions and electronic
records.
The Act presently excludes land transactions, however it is only a
matter of time, and the Act will be extended to follow the global trend
to recognize electronic land transactions. The Information and
Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) has been set up by the government
to be the avant-garde in Sri Lanka’s entry in to the revolutionary
global information sector. With the passing of the two Acts, the
infrastructure necessary to transport Sri Lanka’s land transactions to
the electronic age is in place. In the past couple of years the UDA has
introduced the application of the Global Information System (GIS) and
the Global Positioning System (GPS) to a concept described as Spatial
Planning.
Act 21 of 1998 referred to as (Bim Saviya introduces the Cadastral
Planning method, which will outline and describe the boundaries of plots
of land digitally, with fixed extents to be registered in the electronic
registers. Strategic objective is to establish permanent fixed boundary
system for lands after a systematic resurvey of all the lands in Sri
Lanka.
This will eradicate prescriptive claims squatter problems and
boundary disputes. The law of prescription under the Prescription
Ordinance and the Law of Partition under the Partition Act will not be
applicable, as the Survey Department will undertake to demarcate and
maintain the boundaries of properties of all the private owners.
It is estimated that when the Cadastral mapping system is complete,
there would be about 8.5 million land parcels in the entirety of Sri
Lanka, surveyed and registered in the electronic media.
The benefits of the new mapping system are manifold. The landowners
will have permanent boundaries, will not be plagued by boundary issues,
encroachment and the costs of resurveying required for bank loans will
be something of the past. It is envisaged that obtaining bank loans will
be less cumbersome and each plot of land will have an electronic
document of ownership. Ownership cannot be annulled and will be
indefeasible.
Electronic media to expand the legal work
Electronic media will permit professionals to reach land registries
of other jurisdictions. In India the lawyers are trained in a way that
enables them to adapt to USA and UK law.
Large firms are outsourcing the mundane work to India. The younger
generation of conveyancing lawyers will have great opportunities with
the new methods that are introduced; they will be able to extend their
professional services to work outsourced by other nations.
On discussing these revolutionary changes, question could be asked,
whether these changes would mark the end of land fraud? “Of course not!
This is only the beginning of a whole new world of legal territory and a
challenge to the legal fraternity; fraudsters have kept abreast of the
technological advances in the rest of the world and will use new ruses.
In Sri Lanka it is a challenge to the entire law enforcement agencies;
the legal profession has a major part to play and like ‘night follows
day, research and new legislation are imperative’.
Fictitious sale of the Empire State Building in USA to demonstrate
the need for new rules to fight land fraud
Land transactions which are commonly referred to as sale, gift,
lease, mortgage, agreements to sell etc are contracts that cannot be
entered into without the assistance of third parties. Third parties
include the professionals engaged in land transactions and the
registering officials in land registries which are maintained by the
government.
This makes buying and selling land unique in comparison to buying and
selling any other tangible or intangible item. Despite the fact that
there are third parties to protect the contracting parties, land fraud
has become a global threat to property rights.
Rules governing the system aren’t sufficient to ward off the modern
crime says the professional bodies and this was recently demonstrated in
USA, by filing fictitious paper work to sell the Empire State building
for $2 Billion.
A leading newspaper group took up the challenge and conveyed the
property of the Empire State Building in USA to a company called Nelots
Properties - ‘stolen’ spelt backwards. Bogus documents were forwarded to
the land registry which had a fake name for the notary, signed as Willie
Sutton (an infamous bank robber). The deed was registered in 90 minutes
in the electronic register. Of course they rectified the ownership after
demonstrating the lacunae in the process.
New rule to prevent fraud introduced by Bim Saviya (Section 44 of the
Act 21 of 1998)
Much of the success of prosperous nations is attributable to the
co-operation and co-ordination between the practical and academic world
in providing the rules to maintain property rights.
Professionals and academic research scholars have recommended for
solicitors and notaries to guarantee the identity of owners and to
obtain their correct signatures on documents. The law has been
introduced to Sri Lanka in 1998 under Section 44 of Act 21 of 1998 (Bim
Saviya). Search of land title has transposed into a search of
identification and verification of signatures under the above Act.
Strangely, while legal debates swirl around electronic signatures, a
manual signature has no legal definition in our country and is accepted
whether legible, illegible or even if the signature may not even
remotely relate to the individual named.
Identification and verification of sellers, buyers and all third
parties is recommended to be made with at least three identification
documents such as ID cards, driving licence, photo ID’s at the time of
signing documents and passports. The practice would be to retain the
evidence of proof of identification with notaries for a minimum period
of ten years.
Apart from the responsibility of notaries, purchasers of land need to
be vigilant and search for the identification of owners, especially if
property transactions are executed by Powers of Attorney (POA) holders
in the absence of owners. The Tamil Nadu Registration Department has a
revised procedure, in respect of registration of POA for property
dealings, makes it mandatory for power agents to affix their
photographs, signatures and left thumb impressions along with proof of
identity at the office of the jurisdictional sub registrar. The
photograph of the power agent should be attested by the principal
(property owner or one who gives the (POA).
Biometric identification
In Sri Lanka there is, in some quarters a ‘social - mind - block’
that finger printing is a regression to the colonial times when
‘illiterates’ were required to provide their fingerprints. This
misconceived notion belies the fact that the entire spectrum of
biometric science is used positively in the developed world to keep
abreast of the electronic revolution taking place around us; in the case
of finger printing, electronic land registries around the world obtain
finger prints and there are special ink pads introduced to Sri Lanka
where finger prints could be obtained without staining the fingers.
This science is being increasingly used all over the world to
safeguard the interests of property buyers and to curb fraudulent
property transactions. The science of biometrics incorporates
fingerprints, hand geometry, face recognition, voice recognition, iris
recognition, high-resolution camera photography and a host of other
physiological traits to make positive identification of individuals.
Indeed it is making its presence felt even in personal computers.
Biometrics systems-which once cost tens of thousands of dollars to
install-were originally used only by large corporations and the
government. But now less expensive systems-costing as little as a few
hundred dollars per desktop.
As a result, analysts believe that the usage of biometrics will grow
over the next few years, so that the technology will become prevalent on
the Internet as well as in businesses. Before long, biometric scanning
devices may be bundled into every new PC sold.
For centuries Notaries and Lawyer Notaries of Sri Lanka have been the
vanguard for maintaining and stabilizing property rights. It is not a
surprise therefore that the country will depend on them to eradicate
land fraud by waging war on ideas to sustain the Rule of Law essential
to prevent land fraud. |