Prime Minister, the Hon. Philip Davis led debate on the Registered Land Bill and the Land Adjudication Bill in the House Of Assembly on Wednesday.

The bills will change the way the country addresses land ownership and title and establishes a land registry. Mr. Davis said, “unfortunately a significant portion of land throughout our archipelago lacks a clear title. There are numerous cases where generational property has been passed down with conflicting claims or without official records. There are too many cases in our courts where each claimant claims to have valid but conflicting documentation. Sometimes multiple people claim the same piece of land. We are taken meaningful steps, fixing what’s broken with the way we register land and handle land disputes in our nation.”

The Prime Minister expressed that wide and lengthy consultation was carried out about the proposed legislations. He also spoke to how the new laws will alleviate some of the red tape and confusion currently experience surrounding landownership. “Thanks to the bills before us today we will have land adjudicators officially clarifying ownership rights once and for all. We will establish a land tribunals that hear and render fair decisions in land disputes eliminating the need for expensive and lengthy court proceedings. We’ll bring clarity to the regulation of land creating one official, indisputable record. We’ll modernize how land rights are recorded moving from what is called a deed based system to a modern title based system making it easier to sell, inherit, mortgage and develop land. And we will give investors confidence that there are no hidden claims on the land that will serve as the foundation for their investments,” he said.

The bills were passed during the afternoon session of the House Of Assembly. Parliamentarians are scheduled to return to the House on July 23rd.