The recently enacted law helping ‘trapped buyers’ to get a title deed “restores people’s confidence and safeguards the fundamental right to property”, the borrowers association said on Tuesday.
The association – known as Syprodat – noted that the change in the law affects 9,497 property buyers in total, of whom 4,080 already have a title deed while 5,417 await the completion of the process.
In late June parliament tweaked the law, aiming to help thousands of ‘trapped buyers’ acquire a title deed on their property which they have paid for in full.
The matter concerns thousands of people who had paid for their properties in full but had not been issued with their title deeds because the developers had mortgages on the properties.
Since developers’ land and buildings are counted as assets that need to be offset against their debt to banks, this gave banks a claim on properties that had been mortgaged by developers.
A key provision in the new law concerns cases where lenders or other entities have placed encumbrances or prohibitions on a property and “refuse unfairly and unjustifiably” to consent to transfer of the title deed despite the buyer having paid up in full.
In these cases, the required consent may now be substituted by a court order, filed to the director of the Department of Lands and Surveys.
Where a lender refuses to consent to a title deed transfer, a ‘trapped buyer’ has 45 days in which to petition a court for such an order.
Once such a petition is filed, any other pending process regarding the property is suspended until the court order has been issued.
According to Syprodat, the law also stipulates that once a process is underway, any foreclosure proceedings on a property are suspended.
The association therefore called on banks to “respect the spirit” of the new arrangements and “not antagonise it”.
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