Probe into land frauds in Selangor

From Sun2Surf, something to be wary about these days...

PETALING JAYA (March 12, 2009) : Imagine this scenario. You are a 70-year-old man who owned a seven-hectare plot for almost three decades only to find out that its ownership has changed without your knowledge. The Land Office tells you that you had consented to the transfer although you had never stepped into the office except to pay the quit rent.

Piang Yin points to the land he and his brother Lai Kim inherited.

The officers produce a photocopy of your identity card which bears your details but the photograph is of a different person – and a different gender at that!

If that is not enough to shock you, searches with the Companies Commission of Malaysia reveal that you are a director of the company that has taken over your land, yet you have never set up a company or been appointed a director of one!

This fate that had befallen Lye Piang Yin just goes to show how far one would go to steal land from its rightful owners – an endemic problem in Selangor.

The plot in Hulu Langat which belongs to him and his younger brother Lai Kim was the subject of a fraudulent transfer and the hidden hands of several government agencies have surfaced.

However, there is a happy ending for the Lye brothers as on March 3, the High Court in Shah Alam issued an injunction against Propaxis Trading Sdn from claiming ownership of the land.

Piang Yin and Lai Kim had filed the action in 2006 against Propaxis, the State Land Registrar, the director of the State Land and Mines Department, as well as the Selangor Government.

According to court documents, the brothers who had inherited the land from their father had been paying quit rent between 1980 and 2006 when it came to their attention that the land was in the midst of being transferred.

This was discovered by chance as lawyers of the owners of an adjoining piece of land, ABM Holdings Sdn Bhd, had done a search and discovered that land too had been transferred to the same person.

“They alerted us that our land could also be affected,” said Piang Yin.

In spite of Piang Yin taking a private caveat on the land and three police reports lodged, the caveat was cancelled and the land transfer took place.

When met at his land located about 1.5km from the General Operations Force headquarters in Taman Cuepacs, last Tuesday, Piang Yin, a bachelor said he got worried when he saw surveyors viewing his land – which now resembles a hilly secondary jungle – but there have since been no further activity.

The former RTM technician said his case should prompt other land-owners to constantly check on the status of their property.

“It just shows how easy it is for unscrupulous people to forge documents to steal what rightfully belongs to you,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, the political secretary to the Selangor mentri besar, said the state government would be hauling up officers from the land office and land and mines department as part of an internal probe into the fraud.

“We will also be asking the authorities to investigate since there are clearly elements of criminality involved,” he said, adding that the state government is adamant to fix all issues of fraudulent land transfer from previous administrations.