Title Registration System in Sri Lanka: Comparative Study of Law in Austria and Ghana

Abstract

In Sri Lanka registration of deeds was proposed to be replaced with registration of title system, introduced by the Registration of Title Act 21 of 1998. Under this system certainty of ownership of a land is guaranteed by the government, taking away repeated examinations of the past title. Therefore, title registration is expected to minimize land disputes and forgeries and looked forward to have dynamic land market. Today, after 18 years of implementing the land registration system in Sri Lanka, can we be satisfied with the results of implementation of the Title Registration Act? The answer is ?no?, because there are many inherent weaknesses in the title registration law in Sri Lanka. The objective of this research is to identify issues prevailing with the implementation of the Registration of Title Act 21 of 1998 in Sri Lanka and to propose amendments to improve implementation of registration of title to suit for address the need for the present land market in Sri Lanka. I collected data of title registration in Austria and Ghana. By analyzing the legal situation of these countries, legal provisions they used and success rate and compared with Sri Lanka to find out what the reasons are for infancy of title registration in our country and how to overcome those problems and for a dynamic system of title registration and what are the functions have to be fulfilled. This act does not have adequate efficiency and proper scheme suits to the Sri Lankan situation of the society. So necessary amendments should be done before implementing this act otherwise it will be a money and time consuming processes.