CHERISSE DUR­RANT

Con­veyanc­ing is the process by which the own­er­ship of land or prop­er­ty is trans­ferred from one per­son to an­oth­er.In T&T there are two sys­tems un­der which land is reg­is­tered: the com­mon law sys­tem and the Tor­rens reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem (Re­al Prop­er­ty Act sys­tem).

The sys­tem of reg­is­tra­tion your trans­ac­tion falls un­der de­pends on the doc­u­ment show­ing own­er­ship of the land or prop­er­ty. If the ven­dor's (sell­er) ti­tle doc­u­ment is a deed, then the sys­tem of reg­is­tra­tion is com­mon law. On the oth­er hand, if the doc­u­ment is a Cer­tifi­cate of Ti­tle then the sys­tem of reg­is­tra­tion is the Re­al Prop­er­ty Act sys­tem.

This ar­ti­cle sum­maris­es the steps and doc­u­ments in­volved in the con­veyanc­ing trans­ac­tion of both sys­tems.

Steps:

1. Agree­ment for Sale and De­posit - this is the sale agree­ment for the pur­chase of the land. The agree­ment must be in writ­ing and signed by both the ven­dor and pur­chas­er. A de­posit of 10 per cent of the pur­chase price is paid by the pur­chas­er to the ven­dor. This does not trans­fer own­er­ship of the land but be­gins the process to trans­fer the prop­er­ty.

2. Ti­tle Search - the pur­chas­er's at­tor­ney must en­sure that the ven­dor has good ti­tle to the land and this is done by con­duct­ing a ti­tle search at the Land Reg­istry De­part­ment.

a. Com­mon Law Sys­tem: a man­u­al search is done in the Deed Reg­istry of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's Of­fice. The search must be for a pe­ri­od of at least 20 years or as far back un­til a good "root of ti­tle" is found.

b. Re­al Prop­er­ty Act Sys­tem: since the cer­tifi­cate of ti­tle pro­vides all the in­for­ma­tion of the pre­vi­ous own­ers on it, a gen­er­al in­spec­tion of the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cate of ti­tle is con­duct­ed.

3. Ob­tain Cer­tifi­cate of As­sess­ment - this ap­pli­ca­tion is made to the Dis­trict Rev­enue Of­fice to ver­i­fy that the ven­dor owns the prop­er­ty and to iden­ti­fy WASA lines on the land.

4. Ob­tain WASA Clear­ance Cer­tifi­cate - the ven­dor ap­plies for this to con­firm that there are no out­stand­ing monies due on the prop­er­ty.

5. Stamp Du­ty As­sess­ment - the Deed or Mem­o­ran­dum of Trans­fer is sent to the Board of In­land Rev­enue along with the prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion, util­i­ty rates and land and build­ing re­ceipts for as­sess­ment.

6. Com­ple­tion of Sale � the pur­chas­er pays the ven­dor the out­stand­ing monies to­wards the pur­chase price; the par­ties sign and ex­e­cute the Deed/ Mem­o­ran­dum of Trans­fer; a wit­ness to the trans­ac­tion signs this doc­u­ment be­fore a Com­mis­sion­er of Af­fi­davits.

7. Pay­ment of Stamp Du­ty - the signed Deed/ Mem­o­ran­dum of Trans­fer is sub­mit­ted to Board of In­land Rev­enue where Stamp Du­ty is paid by the pur­chas­er and the doc­u­ment is stamped.

8. Reg­is­tra­tion � the Deed or Mem­o­ran­dum of Trans­fer and the orig­i­nal du­pli­cate Cer­tifi­cate of ti­tle are sub­mit­ted to the Land Reg­istry De­part­ment for reg­is­tra­tion/ en­dorse­ment.

9. Pre­pare and Sub­mit Re­turn of Own­er­ship - this form is pre­pared by the Land Reg­istry De­part­ment to show change of own­er­ship for the pur­pose of prop­er­ty tax­es.

Doc­u­ments:

The fol­low­ing doc­u­ments are usu­al­ly re­quired for the trans­ac­tion to flow smooth­ly

1. Sale Agree­ment signed by both ven­dor and pur­chas­er

2. Orig­i­nal Deed/ Cer­tifi­cate of Ti­tle

3. Cur­rent Re­ceipts for WASA and Land and Build­ing Tax­es

4. WASA Clear­ance Cer­tifi­cate

5. Ap­provals from Town and Coun­try Plan­ning and Lo­cal Health Au­thor­i­ty

6. Re­demp­tion State­ment, Deed of Re­lease/ Mem­o­ran­dum of Dis­charge (if there is an out­stand­ing Mort­gage on the prop­er­ty).

�2 This col­umn is not le­gal ad­vice. If you have a le­gal prob­lem, you should con­sult a le­gal ad­vis­er.