State mum on costs of lost deeds

state mum on costs of lost deeds

pretoria - the land affairs department and its chief registrar of deeds appear to be running scared over the cost of recovering the 335 000 or so title deeds lost by the deeds office in pretoria.

the office lost "images" of title deeds scanned between last august 25 and december 6 after "power instability" affected its information technology system.

despite frequent reminders, the department and the chief registrar of deeds, sam lefafa, have failed to respond to a list of questions submitted by business report nearly 40 days ago.

these questions relate to who would carry the cost of the recovery process and whether the deeds office could positively identify which deeds were lost.

the property law committee of the pretoria attorneys' association last month expressed concern about the failure of a deeds office circular to address the cost implications of the recovery process and the administrative burden attorneys and their clients would carry.

the circular requested all conveyancers, financial institutions, local municipalities, provincial government offices and members of the general public that were in possession of paper copies of title deeds and other documents scanned between the two specified dates to submit them to the registrar of deeds in pretoria for rescanning.

it said a court order must be obtained to cancel a lost bond. a conveyancing attorney who did not want to be named said it would cost at least r15 000 to get such a court order and questioned who would pay for it.

dave freeman, the vice-chairman of the property law committee of the pretoria attorneys' association, said on friday that the deeds office had reached an agreement with all the major banks in terms of which it would send task teams to each bank to scan title deeds and transfer and bond documents on site.

freeman said he was advised that pretoria deeds office registrar pogiso mesefo planned to roll this procedure out last week. the deeds office would carry those costs but lost title deeds not in the possession of banks were still a problem, and attorneys would still have to help with their recovery.

the deeds office had previously indicated that it would publish a list of the lost deeds, but freeman said this had not yet been done, so attorneys could not help with their recovery.

to alleviate similar problems in the future, freeman said, the draft deeds registry bill made applicants responsible for any costs if deeds office copies of title deeds were lost.

however, a conveyancing attorney stressed that the deeds office was the final custodian of all title deeds, and this provision was an attempt to shirk this responsibility.

the land affairs department's website specifically states that the core business of a deeds registry is "to maintain a public register of land as well as an efficient system of registration calculated to afford security of title to land and rights in land".