HAVE YOU LOST YOUR TITLE DEED?

by Bianca van Staden • 3 MIN • 651 Words

After putting your property on the market and eventually finding an interested buyer, there bond has been approved, and the Transfer process can start, your Transferring Attorney asks you for the Original Title Deed, your heart gives a beat, because you have no idea where the Original Title Deed is.

Do not despair all is not gloom and doom, as the Deeds Office Regulation 68 of the Deeds Registries Act 47 of 1937 makes provision for you to apply for the issue of a certified copy of the lost original Title Deed. The request to issue a certified copy of the lost Title Deed will take the form of an affidavit, and will be drafted by your Conveyancer, and will be signed in front of a Commissioner of Oaths.

The affidavit will contain the following information:

Name of the Registered Owner/s;
The Property description of the registered property;
Confirm that the deed has been lost or destroyed and despite a diligent search, cannot be found;
If known, state the circumstances under which it was lost;
Confirm that the deed has not been pledged ;
Not being detained by anyone as security for debt or otherwise;
That you will undertake to furnish the registrar with the original title deed should it be found;
If this is not the first time that the Title Deed has been lost and a copy has been issued previously, this must be disclosed and it must be mentioned that the previous copy has also been lost.

If your property is bonded, the relevant bank will sign a document that they are not in possession of the lost title deed and that they have no objection to the application to issue a certified copy of the lost deed. I you look at the process it look rather simple, but this has all changed, and if you have lost your Title Deed this new process is going to cost you significantly more.

Regulation 68 of the Deeds Registries Act has of late been revised by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, therefore making it a more complex process with new amendments.

What does this mean for you that have lost your title deed?
Well the new process was introduced to try and prevent fraud from happening, the Registrar has implemented a further step which must be complied with before they will issue you with a certified copy of the lost Title Deed. The new regulation requires that an advertisement must be published in a local newspaper circulated in the area where the property is located, giving notice of the intent to apply for a certified copy of the lost Title Deed. The notice is a stipulated form found in the Deeds Office Regulations.

Any person who has a problem with the issue of the certified copy of the Title Deed has a 2 week period from the date the advertisement was published in the newspaper to report their complaint with the Registrar at the particular Deeds Office.
If all requirements have been followed, the advertisement has been published in a local newspaper, and the required 2 weeks that it has to lay for inspection has passed, no objections has been received, the application for the issue of the certified copy of the Title Deed can be lodged in the Deeds Office. The deeds office will now issue you with a Certified copy of the lost Deed. An endorsement is imprinted stating “Certified a true copy of the registry duplicate in terms of Regulation 68 of Act 47 of 1937 and is issued to take the place of the original”.

Please remember that your lost deed will now be null and void, although the Deeds Registry Act give you this process to obtain a lost deed it is the responsibility of each property owner to make sure that Title Deeds are kept Safe.

Charmaine Sommer
Van Staden Inc

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