PENDAFTAR HAKMILIK NEGERI SELANGOR

On the court record

Illustrates how the courts supervise the caveat system, protect the integrity of the register of titles, and resolve competing claims to registered land under the National Land Code.

The Pendaftar Hakmilik Negeri Selangor (the Registrar of Titles, Selangor) appears in this corpus as the State registration authority for land titles, most often as a defendant or respondent in disputes about entries on the register maintained under the National Land Code. A recurring subject is the private caveat: its lodgement in the prescribed form (the record refers to a caveat lodged on Form 19C and, in one matter, the extension of a caveat under section 326 of the National Land Code), the caveatable interest said to support it, and the removal of a caveat where no such interest exists. Because a caveat freezes dealings in the affected land, these cases require the court to decide whether the caveator has shown a serious question to be tried and where the balance of convenience lies, with the Registrar joined as the officer who must give effect to the court's order. Other matters concern competing claims to the same parcel, frequently litigated in suits heard together, and applications to strike out a writ or statement of claim under Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012 where the pleading is said to disclose no reasonable cause of action or to be an abuse of process. Because the Registrar's function is to maintain the accuracy of the register rather than to advance a commercial claim, the office is characteristically named so that the register may be corrected or its position heard rather than as a litigant with its own interest. The matters are decided principally in the High Court, with appeals to the Court of Appeal. Collectively the decisions in which the Registrar of Titles is a party illustrate how the courts supervise the caveat system, protect the integrity of the register of titles, and resolve competing claims to registered land under the National Land Code.