The e-Tanah electronic land administration system (e-Tanah) in use at the Federal Territories Director of Lands and Mines Office Kuala Lumpur (PPTGWPKL) since 2017 and at the Office of the Director of Lands and Mines Perak since 2021 had enabled transactions to be conducted online between these regulators and the private sector stakeholders even during the Movement Control Order (MCO) periods of the COVID-19 virus pandemic.

E-Tanah increases service delivery efficiency in land administration and will be fully expanded to Putrajaya, Labuan and the other peninsular states by 2024. Private searches, applications for ownership transfers and land mortgages, and payments can be performed online.

Technical Working Group on Registering Property (TWGRP) is pursuing an initiative to resolve the issue of not achieving vacant possession with strata titles despite property purchasers having made full payments to developers. Technical, administrative and legislative reforms are necessary to simplify the complexities within the regulatory process and the procedural compliances (workflow).

The applications for and the distribution and signing-off of strata titles in favour of unit purchasers in completed strata property projects where their real property developer companies had been liquidated have to be transacted with appointed private liquidators.

The disparity in amount between the transactional fees charged by private liquidators and the relatively nominal fee charged on unit purchasers by a developer company that is still in a solvent state causes delays and often becomes an insurmountable problem for purchasers to obtain their strata title deeds.

TWGRP is engaging with the Malaysian Department of Insolvency (Mdl), insolvency and legal practitioners, private liquidators and strata property purchasers and also facilitating their engagements to address the issue.