Trust Systematic Land Registration Process – NLA

The National Land Agency (NLA) is encouraging Jamaicans to trust the process of systematic land registration being undertaken by the agency and allow it to work for their benefit.

The process aims to assist persons in obtaining the titles for property they have lived on undisturbed and undisputed for upwards of 12 years.

“Systematic land registration is new; it is revolutionary; it is different from any other land-titling project in Jamaica.

We need all Jamaicans, whether locally or overseas, to participate in the process and to trust in the process,” Senior Director for the NLA’s Adjudication Services Division, Shalise Porteous, told JIS News.

“Our goal is to ensure that persons are not deprived of their parcels of land but are granted documentary proof, absolute proof of ownership to their parcels,” she added.

Systematic registration is the orderly registration of parcels of land in a designated area using the adjudication process.

Flagaman was identified as a pilot project area, and with the completion of preliminary field investigations, the St. Elizabeth community has been declared a systematic adjudication area, thereby enabling the NLA to undertake systematic land registration.

Twenty-one other districts across the island have been declared systematic adjudication areas.

Ms. Porteous said that the feedback from the Flagaman pilot project has been positive.

She shared the benefits of receiving land titles through the programme.

“When you have a certificate of title for your parcel of land you can use that as collateral security for loans. When we look at St. Elizabeth, the breadbasket parish, where there are a lot of farmers, you know, if they had a certificate of title for their parcels, perhaps they would be able to improve their production, improve on agriculture, improve on their technology to facilitate exports and economic opportunities, not just for them but for the entire community and for Jamaica,” she noted.

Ms. Porteous told JIS News that one of the major benefits of systematic land registration is that the Government will advance the entire cost for the registration process.

“Basically, they (landowners) do not have to worry about legal fees or fees to pay a surveyor because it is a service literally brought to their doorsteps,” she noted.

“The fieldwork of collecting data and preparing applications will be carried out by the NLA while Geoland Title Limited will survey the parcels of land,” she added.

Landowners will only be required to repay the Government after the land title has been issued.

Ms. Porteous told JIS News that there is no deadline for repayment and there is no specific sum that persons will be required to pay.

“All they are required to do is to pay what they can, over a period of time, so that other persons will be able to benefit from the systematic land registration process,” she noted.

“It is not a situation where, if they can’t find the money one month that will be an issue. What they will be encouraged to do is to just pay what they can,” she stressed.

Systematic land registration has been successfully used in other countries to facilitate the mass registration of parcels of land in a short period. Under the programme, the NLA is aiming to issue 20,000 land titles over three years.