THE Registrar of Lands, Mrs. Juliet Sattaur, purported to set the record straight as she said in her letter  published in the Stabroek News dated Monday, February 13, 2012.  However, her letter suffers from many deficiencies which, I am forced to clear up by this response. On the 11th day of November, 2011, I had cause to file proceedings on behalf of my client Parbatie Khan, seeking an order of mandamus to compel her to issue Certificate of Title to the said Parbatie Khan (an old woman of 77 years). My client filed her application for title on 3rd  December 2010 and had not received her title since then, even though there was no legal impediment (query) to her being issued her title. The only impediment, it seems, being the Registrar of Lands. Clearly the failure to issue a title for approximately one year was an inordinate and unreasonable delay.
An Order Nisi of Mandamus was granted on the 9th day of December, 2011, by Justice Franklyn Holder in the High Court of the Supreme Court of Judicature, calling upon the Registrar of Lands “to show cause why a writ of mandamus should not be issued  to her commanding her to register the instrument of transfer presented for registration by the applicant Parbatie Khan on 3rd December, 2010.”.The proceedings were served on the office of the Registrar of Lands, and  the Registrar promptly issued title to my client. Had the Registrar not been brought to account before the court, I verily believe my client’s matter would have been languishing on her desk or wherever, until now. You would appreciate that lawyers hardly ever file these types of proceedings, unless the limit to the frustrations in obtaining title has been reached or exceeded. In this case, my limit was exceeded.
The Registrar of Lands, having complied with the nisi order of the court by issuing title to my client, there was no need for me to pursue the application for the order to be made absolute, to compel her to issue that which she was forced to issue and did in fact issue. Had the Registrar not accepted that the delay was due to her, she should have opposed this matter in court. However, by issuing the title she implicitly accepted that the failure was at her doorstep.
In my view, these proceedings were necessary as no public servant should feel that he/she is above the law, and these proceedings serve to give notice to the Registrar of Lands that she is subject to the law like everyone else.
I may have been misinformed and I am subject to correction, but my information is that after Michael Seepersaud was dismissed in July 2010 from the Land Registry in Berbice, all or most Berbice records were taken to Georgetown and were  returned only recently when Mr. Dave Bassoo was employed as a clerk there. In good faith, I am willing to accept the Registrar’s version of this matter.
No one is alleging that the Registrar is taking bribes. However, I can attest to and the majority, if not the whole of the Berbice Bar can attest to her continued failure to issue titles in a timely manner. Members of the public have also been complaining of this. Instead of seeing these complaints as a stimulus to galvanise her to work to get rid of the backlog, she takes umbrage.
Her responses to the many complaints against her have been diabolical, dismissive and disingenuous, I must say.
At the end of the day, it is the lawyer who sees the wrath of the client when titles are not issued in a timely manner. Well, I cannot accept blame for what is perceivably the dilatoriness of the Land Registry and /or the Registrar of Lands. So the Registrar has to be brought to account as I have done by filing the case against her. I would have no hesitation in returning to court if needs be in my other pending matters.
As it stands, a transfer of certificate of title takes longer, and seems impossible to obtain in some cases, even  though the law does not  require the advertisement of the transfer of Certificates of title in the gazette as is required for the transfer of transports. There are titles that are outstanding for months to years. As a result, invariably, compliance certificates and rates certificates expire and clients and lawyers are put to great expense and inconvenience in renewing same. What should take no more than 72 hours to be issued takes years in the hands of this Registrar. Maybe if the shoe were on the other foot she would have been more receptive and responsive to complaints.
At a meeting with the Honourable Attorney General  and Minister of Legal Affairs on Friday 3rd February 2012, all the lawyers present were unanimous in their complaints about the  functioning of the Land Registry, and hence the blame falls squarely on the Registrar of Lands who is the person in charge of the Registry.
No such complaints were made about the functioning of the Deeds Registry at Berbice, so the public can judge for themselves wherein the fault lies.
I believe relief for the Berbice Bar is nigh and will certainly be welcomed.
I do not have any personal vendetta or grouse against the Registrar, but it seems that I am the only lawyer in Berbice who is willing to speak publicly of the inefficiencies and deficiencies of the Land Registry in Berbice.
I am very reliably informed that many lawyers in Berbice are seeriuosly contemplating  filing legal proceedings against the Registrar of Lands similar to mine as they are just as frustrated in the continued failure of her to issue titles in a timely manner.
I do hope that lawyers and members of the public who have complaints about the functioning of the Land registry at Berbice will now see it  fit and an opportune time to come forward and publish their grievances now; or perhaps forever hold their piece.