the truth about petaling jaya land layout 03sept2012

7/30/2019 The Truth About Petaling Jaya Land Layout 03Sept2012

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The truth about

Petaling Jaya land


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Published byMak Khuin Weng

K11J, iara Damansara,

Jalan 17/1, 46400 Petaling Jaya.

Email: [email protected]

2012 Mak Khuin WengAll rights reserved.

No part o this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any orm, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without the prior permission o the publisher.

Cover design & Photographs by Victor Chin

Layout design by Janice Cheong

Printed by Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd

2, Jalan Meranti Permai 1,

Meranti Permai Industrial Park,

Batu 15, Jalan Puchong,

47100 Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia.


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Tis book is dedicated to my late mother.

Her strength, generosity, compassion, wisdom and

love was what kept me rom alling in

with the wrong crowd.


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Contents

Why Petaling Jaya is freehold 3

A little history 3

National Land Code and Cap 138 5

he founding of Petaling Jaya 6

Land titles not issued 6

Remedial action 8

Leasehold title discrepancies 9

What next? 11

Questions arising 12


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Tis is one o the many Welcome to Petaling Jaya signs located at the townships

borders. Tere is more to this township than meets the eye.


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Why Petaling Jaya is freehold1

I FIRS publicly raised the issue that Petaling Jaya was reehold

land, and explained why, in October 2010. Te Selangor

government chose not to respond to the issue. Tis lack o

acknowledgement was no dierent rom when I sought to start

an internal discussion in the state government a year earlier.

It is this lack o acknowledgement that a problem exists and the

states inaction despite the evidence in hand that has spurred me

to write this book. It is my hope that by providing in this book the

acts, legal documentation and arguments I have collected over the

years, Petaling Jaya residents can decide i they will continue to payquit rent and assessment or their properties. It is also my hope that

this book will encourage at least some Petaling Jaya residents to ght

or their rights because the evidence I will provide point to a legal

problem over the current status o Petaling Jaya land titles.

1 For an abridged version o my arguments, please read my original article

on this issue, Leasehold or reehold: Whats the truth about Petaling Jaya

land?, which appeared in Te Nut Graph and is reproduced on pages 27 -

30. It oers a shorter layperson explanation o why residents deserve their

reehold land titles.


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A little history

Beore I proceed with a more detailed version o the land titleissue, lets establish a ew historical acts to help us understand the

complexity o the issue.

Prior to World War 2, the Federated Malay States were governed

under three dierent administrative systems with their respective

administrative laws. When the British returned aer World War 2,

they needed to reduce the cost o administrating the peninsula and

mooted or a unied administrative system.

Hence, the British introduced the Malayan Union on 1 April

1946. Because there was much opposition to the Malayan Union,

it was soon replaced with the Federation o Malaya on 1 February

1948, which provided the structure or our present day government.


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Tis new government structure introduced several legal

problems as existing laws were written or the Federated Malay

States. For example, the Land Code FMS Cap 138 (Cap 138)

recognised the British Resident as the authorised signatory or

many Cap 138 processes. However, the government structure or the

Federation had replaced the position o the British Resident with the

post o Menteri Besar, making it problematic to uphold and adhere

to this law.

Tis period between the ormation o the Federation o Malaya

and the ormulation o laws in Parliament to replace old laws such

as Cap 138 is known as the transition period. Petaling Jaya was

ounded in 1952, during the transition period aer Malaya became a

ederation in 1948 and beore the National Land Code was passed by

Parliament in 1965.

Tis means that between the time Malaya became a ederation

and the National Land Code was put in place, there was no properlaw to govern land matters. Tese underlying actors were partly

why the ounding o Petaling Jaya and the issuance o land titles to

original property buyers were extremely messy and complicated.

Te good thing was our ounding leaders were not oblivious to

land title issues that resulted rom this transitional period. Hence,

they ensured that provisions were inserted in the National Land

Code to deal with them. We will examine these provisions below.


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A house in Section 1 Petaling Jaya that was built in the 1950s and remains till this

day. A ew houses in Petaling Jaya have not been renovated because the ownerscannot aord to pay the premium to renew their leasehold titles.


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National Land Code and Cap 138

Since the National Land Code is the present law governing landmatters, let us examine what the laws say about land matters that

occurred beore the National Land Code was established.

Section 4 of the National Land Code states that nothing

done under any previous land law would be invalidated by the

present law.

So, we have a saving clause right o the bat that says that anything

done under the previous land law still applies.

Section 14 of the National Land Code allows a state

government to come up with specic rules to deal with land

matters.

Ten we have a clause that allows the state government to come upwith rules to deal with specic issues. Te Selangor government

enacted the Selangor Land Rules under this section o the law. Te

Selangor Land Rules have specic clauses on how to deal with land

matters that were transacted prior to the National Land Code.

Section 56 of the Selangor Land Rules states that or land

that has been approved or alienation under a previous land

law, but has not in act been so alienated, the Registrar may

prepare and register the document o title under the previous

land law.

So again, we have an instruction that any land transaction that was

done beore 1965 should continue to use the previous land law and

have the land titles issued under the previous law.

Now that we have established the act that land matters governingPetaling Jaya ought to use the previous land law o Cap 138, lets go

through the historical records o what went wrong.


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Te founding of Petaling Jaya

Historical records show that the site or Petaling Jaya was originallyproposed in 1952 on land that belonged to Petaling Estate2. Te

rst ew houses were built in 19533. Te then Sultan o Selangor,

Almarhum Sir Hisamuddin Alam Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan

Alaiddin Sulaiman Shah, made a decree on 12 March 19554 to

declare Petaling Jaya a town.

Petaling Jaya was subsequently gazetted5 as a town on 7 April

1955 with a survey map6 showing the townships boundaries. From

this chronology o events, we can deduce that houses were built

beore the area was declared a town. Tis is an important point as we

will see below.

Land titles not issued

In a letter to the Petaling Jaya Administrator dated 19 October 19557,

the Kuala Lumpur District Ocer wrote about the administrative

problems the declaration would cause.

I think it would be desirable if Petaling Jaya is declared to be

town land and will consider how best that can be done.

2. You will appreciate that by declaring the land as townland under Section 6 of the Land Code, conditions as

to cultivation of the land become inoperative (emphasis

mine). This is a point which we must consider if it is

intended to include within the town area land not in

possession of the Authority.

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See map on p. 31 (attachment A)3 See certicate o tness on p. 32-34 (attachment B1 B3)4 See gazette on p. 34 (attachment C)5 Tis declaration o Petaling Jaya as a town is still recognised under Section

442 o the National Land Code. See p. 35-36 (attachment D1 D2)6 Close up o map on 37 and ull map on p. 38 (attachment E1 E2)7 See letter on p. 39 (attachment F)


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3. The second point and possibly more difficult to deal with

is that all land titles for alienated land would have to

be recalled as lot numbers would be revised (emphasismine). This involves alterations to the 8-inch standard

sheets of the Survey Department and is quite a formidable

operation. It is not one that can be done very speedily but

the first request is to define the limits of the area to be

declared town land. Perhaps you would like to make a

suggestion to this point.

In paragraph two, the district ocer explained that once an area was

declared town land, it could no longer be legally armed. Te entire

area demarcated as Petaling Jaya was still very much an estate at that

time with plantation crops. In paragraph three, the district ocer

highlighted the need to survey the privately-owned land in Petaling

Jaya so that land titles could be issued.Under Cap 138, land cannot be legally sold without a survey rst

being done8. A survey must also be done beore any land title can

be issued. And since the Survey Department had not yet conducted

such a survey as evidenced above, this meant that buyers were not

given land titles to their property at the time o their purchase when

the town was ounded.

Tis was problematic because Cap 138 prohibits the land rom

being occupied until the land title is given9. Te Resident could

make an exception and give express permission to occupy the land,

provided the land title was being processed. However, do recall that

the position o Resident was replaced by the Menteri Besar in the

new ederation government and no such permission was given in

any case.

As urther proo that the land titles were not in the hands o

house buyers, a 26 January 1956 Auditor General Report also

8 Section 22 o Cap 138.9 Section 18 o Cap 138.


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highlighted the issue10. Te report stated that the house buyers

documents were not land titles, and that these documents were

stamped with house addresses instead o the lot numbers that the

Survey Department was to have assigned. Te Auditor Generals

Report also stated that the Petaling Jaya Authority was the developer

o the township and was responsible or selling the houses under a

hire purchase scheme.

10 See Auditor Generals report on p. 32-33 (attachment G1 G2)

A scenic view o Menara Majestic, which is built on the site where the frst cinema

Majestic Cinema was located.


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Te memorandum armed that the Survey Department would

proceed with surveying the individual house lots using Sections 50

and 101 o Cap 138. Tis would then enable the land titles or the

individual houses in Petaling Jaya to be issued. Survey plans rom

the Selangor Survey Department that were done between 1958 and

1962 or Sections 1 to 4 o Petaling Jaya showed the department

completed its task. Tis proves that there were clearly instructions to

issue the land titles under Cap 138.

Te Survey Department did do its job, as there are surveys or

Sections 1 to 4 in the late 1950s to the 1960s12.

12 See sample survey on p. 42 (Attachment H)


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Lembaga Bandaran Petaling Jaya (LBPJ) was ormed in 1964 and took over the duties o the

Petaling Jaya Authority. Tis stone chair located in the Section 1 Petaling Jaya open feld isone o the ew that remain in the area, slowly decaying away amidst pieces o rubbish.


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Leasehold title discrepancies

Te historical documents have established what transpired and whatthe government sought to do to correct the problems which arose.

Te National Land Code has instructions to use Cap 138 or land

transactions beore 1965 as I have explained earlier. And there is

enough evidence to show that the state government was meant to

have issued land titles under Cap 138.

And yet, inexplicably, the Selangor government chose to issue

leasehold land titles under the National Land Code to property

buyers instead. Why the Selangor government decided to do this

remains something they have to answer or. For now, the state wont

even acknowledge that the issue exists.

On top o that, the Selangor government needs to explain how

it decided that the titles would be leasehold instead o reehold.

Te act is, land in Petaling Jaya should be reehold because estateland under the British government was reehold. Te whole area

was private land under the ownership o Petaling Estate, and was

subsequently sold to the pioneer residents o Petaling Jaya. Hence,

the land titles should have been reehold. And once land is reehold,

meaning it is privately owned, it remains reehold.

In order or the state government to rightully issue leasehold

titles, it would have had to own the land beore leasing it to buyers.Tat could only have happened i the government had bought the

land rom the pioneer residents o Petaling Jaya back in the 1950s

and 1960s to make it state land. But this did not happen.

Tere is yet another aspect to the problem. For a land title

to be valid, all the inormation on it must be lled out correctly.

Unortunately, this has not always been the case. Let us examine just

two dierent leasehold land titles that were issued by the Selangorgovernment that I have ound in the course o my research.


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In the rst example, the land title was issued on 17 July 196413

under the National Land Code. How could the National Land Code

be used to issue a land title in 1964 when the Code was only put in

place in 1965?

Te second example deals with conficting dates. Te land title

has a date o registry column14. Tis refects the date when the

state government sold the piece o land to a buyer. In this second

example, this date o registry is listed as 9 June 1970. But there is

also a column or date o rst alienation on the land title which is

listed as 3 December 1959. Tis column also reers to the rst time

the government sold the piece o land to a buyer. How can there

be two dates or when the land was sold to the same buyer? Such

discrepancies invalidate these leasehold land titles.

13 See sample land title on p. 43 (attachment I)14 See sample land title on p. 44-45 (attachment J1 J2)


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Te Jalan emplar / Jalan Othman junction, which used to be a roundabout, is the

starting point o Petaling Jaya. Jalan emplar and Jalan Othman were previously

known simply as Road 1 and Road 2 respectively.


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What next?

Lets recap everything that I have explained thus ar. Te rst houses

in Petaling Jaya were built around 1952 or 1953. Petaling Jaya was

only declared a town in 1955. Tese houses did not have any land

titles because the surveys or the new township had not yet been

done.

o x the problem, the Survey Department was tasked with

surveying the town to enable land titles to be issued under Cap 138.

Tese surveys were done.

But instead o issuing land titles under the previous land law, the

Selangor government issued National Land Code leasehold titles

or Sections 1 to 4, and later Sections 5 to 16, o Petaling Jaya which

were all sold and developed beore 1965 when the National Land

Code came into orce. o compound the problem, many o these

leasehold titles have unexplained discrepancies which, rom thelooks o it, would invalidate them.

So what are we le with? We are le with a situation where the

land titles under the old land law were not issued to the original

buyers as instructed. And on top o that, the leasehold land titles that

the Selangor government issued are suspect.

Since these leasehold land titles are invalid, there can be no basis

to charge the house owner quit rent and assessment, as these rates

are all derived rom the land title. Tat means very simply that the

quit rent and assessment charges that have been collected all these

years were illegally gotten.

What can be done about this situation? For certain, it would be

a needlessly messy and gargantuan task to return all the illegally-

collected monies to house buyers. For one, these houses might havebeen sold many times over and it would not be clear who was owed

what. My suggestion is that it would be more prudent and pragmatic

i home owners past and present oreited their previous

payments and in exchange, they are issued reehold titles instead.


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A view o the PJ Old own wet market. Te market was originally located where

Public Bank is now situated.

Is this a viable solution the Selangor government can oer?

I believe it is. And even i it doesn't oer this solution, it must

oer some solution rather than ignore that a legal problem exists.

Ignoring the problem will not make it go away and the state

government is merely opening itsel up to legal challenges over

quit rent and assessment ees i it continues to sidestep the issue

altogether.


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Questions arising

In this nal segment, I will attempt to answer some o the more

popular questions people have asked me with regards to the

inormation I have presented.

Q: What i the original Petaling Estate land titles were leasehold

to begin with? Aer all, you dont have a copy o the land title.

A: Te Selangor government is the custodian to all these recordsand they should be the ones producing the master land title

to prove this point. In any case, even i the original land titles

or Petaling Estate turns out to be leasehold, the Selangor

government still has to issue land titles using the previous

land law, which would make the leasehold title valid or 999

years.


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Q: My leasehold title does not say it was issued beore 1965, so

does that mean the land title is valid?

A: Again, i the area was developed beore 1965, the land title or

that area must be issued under the previous land law, which is

what the National Land Code stipulates. From my enquiries

to the house owners, Section 1 to Section 16 o Petaling Jaya

was developed beore 1965. So, even i the land title has a date

o issue post 1965, the act that these areas were developed

and sold to the public beore 1965 means the land titlesshould be issued under the Land Code Cap 138.

Also consider this: In order or the Selangor government

to sell state land, an application must be made under the

National Land Code Schedule 1 Form. Tis application would

only be valid i there is an approval given under Schedule 2

Form o the National Land Code. All this must take placeaer 1 January 1966 when the National Land Code became

enorceable. I these conditions are met, only then can the

land title be issued under the National Land Code. So ask

yourselves this question: Why would there be an application

to buy the land rom the Selangor government aer 1966

by a house buyer i the house was already paid or, built and

occupied in the 1950s and early 1960s?


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Some o the houses in Section 5 Petaling Jaya have been issued reehold land titles

yet others are leasehold. Why is there such a discrepancy?


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Te aman Jaya Lake used to be a tin mine, as were some parts o Section 14 and

Section 8 in Petaling Jaya.


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Leasehold or freehold: Whats the truth about Petaling Jaya

land?

11 October 2010

The Nut Graph: http://www.thenutgraph.com/leasehold-freehold/

LEASEHOLD titles in Petaling Jaya (PJ) are a controversial topic.

The expiration date of the lease and the high premium that

needs to be paid to the Selangor government has causedrevival of much of PJ Old Town, comprising Sections 1 to 4, to

stagnate.

In my research into the issue, I have found evidence to

show that leasehold titles in these areas may very well be

invalid, and property owners of PJ may actually be entitled to

freehold titles.

Various complications could arise if PJ property owners

were to insist that their homes are on freehold land, but these

have to be dealt with in another article. As far as this article is

concerned, I will look at historical evidence that suggests that

parts of old PJ have always been privately-owned land, and

should therefore be under freehold titles.

Wrong land titles?

Petaling Jaya was founded in 19531 under British rule, with

houses built and sold to the pioneer residents at prices

ranging from $2,500 to $25,000. The town status was officially

formalised in the Federation of Malaya Gazette dated 7 April

1955.

This gazette, which lists the lot numbers, corresponds with the

lot numbers found in a survey map of the area, which shows

the land being owned by one Petaling Estate.


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Since the whole area was private land under the ownership

of Petaling Estate, and was subsequently sold to the pioneers,

should not the land titles be freehold? Yet, leasehold titleswere issued for many of the houses in Section 1 through 4 of

PJ.

In order for it to rightfully issue leasehold titles, the state

government would have had to own the land before leasing it

to buyers. That could only have happened if the government

had bought the land from the pioneer residents of PJ back in

the 1950s and 1960s to make it state land. But this did not

happen.

Further, the leasehold titles that the Selangor government

issued contain anomalies. For one, some of the titles were

issued under the National Land Code, with the date of issue

listed between 1962 and 1967. However, the National Land Code

was only gazetted in 1965. What then of the titles that wereissued before this year? I would say that many of these titles

are suspect.

What went wrong?

Recall that the privately-owned land was sold to pioneers in

1953, and subsequently gazetted as the town of Petaling Jaya

under the administration of Kuala Lumpur in 1955.

The gazetting of PJ was done under Section 6 of Land Code

Cap 138. This Code, or Cap 138, was the law for land matters up

until the National Land Code was enacted.

Under the rules prescribed in Cap 138, when a town is

declared over an area, the land titles must be amalgamated

and sub-divided according to the town plan. This means thatall the land lot numbers that were shown in the survey plan of

Petaling Estate would have to be combined to form one huge PJ

town. The individual plots of land that pioneers bought would

have to be sub-divided and given new lot numbers. In other


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words, the land lots of the newly gazetted town would have to

be redrawn and redivided.

The job of assigning lot numbers and surveying the

individual pieces of land was to be done by the director of

survey. Only after this exercise was completed could the final

titles be issued.

The actual development and sale of the houses to PJs

pioneer residents happened faster than the British government

could cope with at the time, as shown in a letter dated 19

Oct 1955.5 In this letter, the then Kuala Lumpur district officer

admitted that it was a formidable task to survey Petaling Jaya.

Surveys were done for some areas, as shown in survey plans

from 1956.

With such a short time to go before Malaya would achieve

independence, the British-controlled government could notcomplete the land survey before the independent Malayan

government took over.

What happened post-independence is speculation, but

clearly the job of issuing final freehold titles to the pioneers of

PJ was not done.

Old law still applies

Since all this happened so long ago under different regulations

and a different government, can the law then the Land Code

Cap 138 still be applied, and can it be used to correct the

mistake made?

Section 4(1) of the newer law, the National Land Code

1965, states: Nothing in this Act shall affect the past operationof, or anything done under, any previous land law or, so far

as they relate to land, the provisions of any other law passed

before the commencement of this Act.


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Therefore, Cap 138, the law that was used to produce the

land titles, is still applicable when it comes to correcting a

wrong.

To the argument that there is a statute of limitation on

the liability of the state government or to correct the wrong

that was done, Section 43 of Cap 138 states that there is no

limitation by any law on matters pertaining to land.

This argument is further strengthened by Section 341 of

the National Land Code, which states: Adverse possession of

land for any length of time whatsoever shall not constitute a

bar to the bringing of any action for the recovery thereof by

the proprietor or any person or body entitled to an interest

therein, and accordingly, the Limitation Act 1953, shall in no

circumstances operate to extinguish any title to, or interest in,

land.

What should be done

This report was compiled over a period of almost two years,

but it is by no means complete, as there are many other

supportive evidences and arguments that I have not included

to ensure brevity.

But what I have presented is enough for now to show thatsome land titles in Petaling Jaya have been wrongly issued, and

some might not even be valid. In short, some landowners have

long been denied their dues.

The right thing to do would be for the state government

to finish the survey started by the British, and issue the final

freehold titles according to that survey.

KW Mak wrote this piece independently of his role as a MBPJ

councillor, as land matters are outside the jurisdiction of the

local council.


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Attachment A


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Attachment B1


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Attachment B2


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Attachment B3

Attachment C


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Attachment D1


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Attachment D2


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Attachment E1


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Attachment E2


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Attachment F


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Attachment G1


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Attachment G2


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Attachment H


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Attachment I


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Attachment J1


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Attachment J2


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Acknowledgement

Tis book would not have been possible without the

encouragement and support o the ollowing persons:Siti Aishah Maaru, Victor Chin, Syed Jalal,

Dr Muthukumarasamy and

the Section 4 Rukun etangga committee.

the truth about petaling jaya land layout 03sept2012

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