Stronger coordination needed between all stakeholders to accelerate issuing of title deeds
In order to accelerate the issuing of title deeds it will be important to streamline the work of various stakeholders who are in the value chain of title deeds. To this end, a political task team will be formed to ensure coordination of all stakeholders and assist with quicker and efficient issuing of title deeds. This was decided at the Gauteng Provincial Title Deeds Indaba held in Soweto on Friday.
Key amongst the decisions taken at the Indaba is that the whole model of delivery of houses must change in Gauteng in order to ensure a more efficient way of creating access to housing. This calls for fundamental changes in project planning, execution and the need for technological intervention such as biometric fingerprint technology in the future of mega human settlements in Gauteng. This is line with the current turnaround strategy of the Department of Human Settlements in Gauteng.
“We are sitting with a backlog of around 166 000 title deeds to issue in Gauteng, which include houses for from the apartheid period and post 1994 RDP houses. We need to issue these title deeds from the old stock and wrap up these legacy projects. Concluding this will make way for the mega human settlements projects in Gauteng which are going to make a major impact and dent for those who have been waiting for government housing”, Human Settlements MEC Jacob Mamabolo said.
Led by the Department of Human Settlements in Gauteng, the Indaba heard that there are various processes that delay the issuing of title deeds, which include processes in the municipalities, Department of Human Settlements, Surveyor-General, Deeds Registrar, Conveyancing firms and so on. Over and above these disjointed and uncoordinated processes from the different stakeholders, there is also a large amount of pieces of legislation governing issue of title deeds.
“Clearly the problem is bigger than we thought and the immediate action is that all of us stakeholders here must formalise the way we work and come up with a strong coordination mechanism to overcome this mammoth task. I am confident that our open, frank and robust discussions today have elevated the need to treat the issue of title deeds as matter of urgency”, MEC Jacob Mamabolo said.
The Indaba also vigorously tackled various challenges affecting issuing of title deeds. These include disputed (family) properties, township establishment processes, untraceable beneficiaries, eviction and attaching of properties, incomplete/incorrect information and so on.
“A title deed is the only acceptable proof of ownership of property. It is therefore important to educate our people about the importance and legality of a title deed. We have countless cases of people signing affidavits when they buy or sell properties. Let me inform our people once again, an affidavit will never replace a title deed. Avoid shortcuts and do the right thing by getting the property transferred properly through the Registrar of Deeds”, MEC said.
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