| Dubious land deals are on the increase with more and more cases piling up in courts, with some of the victims seeking the assistance of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to probe them.
The frauds have sparked off a multitude of serious repercussions including that of banks unable to recover their loans granted for land purchases, incomplete constructions and victims losing millions of rupees.
Within three months of setting up, the CID’s special unit to probe land frauds has received more than 1,000 complaints with more coming in on a regular basis. “We have arrested four main gangs involved in land frauds, but more complaints are coming in “, a senior officer involved in the investigations told the Sunday Times.
A businessman in Wellawatte, along with two of his friends invested Rs. 18 million on a land to put up an apartment complex, but after the transaction, he found that the seller had sold the land owned by his father on a forged deed.
“But, what was amazing was that a State bank had granted a loan on the documents. We were convinced that the documents were genuine,” the businessman, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Sunday Times.
Presently he is involved in a legal battle to recover at least part of the proceeds of the sale, but he says, “I have little hope that the money would be recovered”. He says that the collective loss amounts to Rs. 27 million.
In addition to the CID, the complaints also keep flowing into the Police Fraud Bureau (PFB).“We get about two complaints a day on land frauds. Some of them are cases where State land or even land reserved around rivers or canals have been sold on forged deeds,” Chief Inspector H.L. Wimalasena of the PFB told the Sunday Times.
“The first step towards a fraud usually, is the forgery of the national identity card (NIC) and the birth certificate (BC) of the original owner. Thereafter, the forgery of the deeds take place with the assistance of a Notary Public, and the bogus deeds registered,” he explained.
He said that, very often, underworld persons were involved in the frauds, and they mostly target properties of those living overseas for long periods and those without caretakers.
He said that most land frauds were reported from the Western Province where the land value is high, but there were cases in the outstations as well, where large extents of lands are fraudulently taken over. “There are instances where deeds have been made for land reserved on either or both sides of railway lines or for the reservation of land adjoining banks of canals and rivers,” he added.
Among the complaints are also cases of forging of last wills claiming that the deceased had transferred his/her land to another person before his/her demise, he said.
Those in the legal profession handling such cases of land frauds believe that the archaic laws of the country are being exploited by those involved in the frauds.
Attorney-at-Law Ms. Kirthimala Gunasekara who has carried out research on electronic conveyance, prevention of land fraud and compensation methods, believes that that Notaries Ordinance of 1907 is one of the Ordinances being heavily misused.
“At the moment, the Notary does not hold any responsibility when a person attests a deed,” Ms. Gunasekara told the Sunday Times.
She pointed out that some of the deeds that are contested by owners as forged documents and under litigation, do not bear the identification and the address of Notaries, while some of the deeds do not identify the parties, as required by the Notaries Ordinance.
There were dangers in electronic registration introduced under Act 21 of 1998 [Bim Saviya] and electronic documents under Act 19 of 2006 also being used. According to the new system, a deed registered under this system is legally acceptable.
“There is a possibility that a fraudulently registered deed is registered under this system and accepted as a valid document thereafter,” she said.
Mr. Vijitha Tennekoon of the Legal Information Centre for Protecting Land owners told the Sunday Times that currently the banks too were facing a problem in recovering their loans whenever land disputes arise.
“There are instances where people have stopped repaying the loans due to the bank, whenever there is a dispute over a land transaction. This could lead to problems in the recovery process,” he said.
The Sunday Times learns that banks were closely studying the situation, and at least one of the private banks summoned a meeting two weeks back, to discuss the problems in depth.
Chief Inspector Wimalasena called on the public to be careful when carrying out land transactions, by first identifying the actual owner of the land. “You may be able to speak to the Grama Niladhari or the neighbours to ascertain the identity of the real owner, because they will be the best to identity the owner,” he added.
He said that prospective buyers should also be careful of those selling high value lands at prices lower than the real market value. “Some of them claim they are disposing off the land in a hurry, as they need funds urgently to travel overseas. Be careful of these people, as they may be trying to dispose off someone else’s land, and get away,” he added. |
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