1. ) Saring Bin Sapan 2. ) Yunus Bin Hj. Nor v 1. ) Wakil Diri Kepada Rajamah Binti Mat Saat / Rajamah Binti Saat (Si mati) 2. ) Pentadbir Tanah Daerah Kuala Langat 3. ) JABATAN KETUA PENGARAH TANAH DAN GALIAN PERSEKUTUAN

Case Significance

Illustrates that ownership arising from an old land sale may be established by contemporaneous documents and conduct — such as delivery of the original title documents and a transfer-appeal letter — where the written sale agreement has been lost: the court granted a declaration that the plaintiffs were the owners of the two parcels.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam, delivered by Judicial Commissioner Hazizah Kassim, concerns an originating summons for declaratory relief establishing ownership of land bought decades earlier where the written sale agreement could no longer be found. The plaintiffs claimed to be the new owners of two parcels of land in the District of Kuala Langat, which they said they had purchased from the deceased vendor in 1966. The defendants included the legal representative of the deceased's estate, the Land Administrator, and the Federal Director-General of Lands and Mines. The heirs of the deceased challenged the existence of any sale and purchase agreement, and the difficulty for the plaintiffs was that, despite efforts to trace it, the written agreement could not be located. The plaintiffs relied instead on a body of contemporaneous documents and conduct, including the deceased's delivery to them of the original documents of title and a transfer-appeal letter dated 17 July 1984.

The court allowed the originating summons. It held that the written sale agreement was not the only evidence capable of binding the court to grant the plaintiffs' claim, and that the existence of contemporaneous documents close in time to the alleged transaction, together with the surrounding circumstances, could establish the sale even in the absence of the agreement itself. The delivery to the plaintiffs of the original title documents and the transfer-appeal letter, among other material, supported the conclusion that the parcels had indeed been sold to the plaintiffs. The court accordingly granted the declaration that the plaintiffs were the new owners of the two parcels, invoking the machinery of the National Land Code, and ordered that each party bear its own costs. The judgment illustrates that ownership arising from an old sale may be established by contemporaneous documents and conduct where the original written agreement has been lost.