Mr. Dylan Chong giving a seminar on "What should you know about strata title"? at Reapfield Damansara Perdana on 02.02.2024. Participants around 30-40 people (mostly internal senior property agents).

Perfection of Title | from Developer to Individual Buyer

Perfection of title or known as "POT" is a process to perfect the title which is under the developer name to the individual owner's name.

The buyer may have purchase a developer unit from the developer but the property has yet to be fully constructed. The purchaser signed a sale and purchase agreement with the developer. The buyer and developer becomes a beneficial owner and bare trustee.

The developer has a duty to then transfer the strata title (condominium/apartment) or individual title (landed property) to the individual owner. 

The owner has to pay Stamp Duty or enjoy certain stamp duty discount/exemption. This whole process is call Perfection of Title.

The legal document involve in the process to transfer the title is call the "Memorandum of Transfer" or "MOT".

Perfection of Charge

After the process of POT is done at the land office, if a buyer borrows money from the bank which is also known as the End Financier, the buyer has to charge the land title to the bank by registering the charge at the land office.


Direct Transfer

The process of direct transfer if where the individual owner purchased a developer's unit and has yet to perfect the title under his name, but has sell it to a third party (under a subsale transaction).

The process then require the developer to agree to do a direct transfer of the title to the third party when the title is out.

This process will involve developer's administrative charges for the transfer of title directly to a new buyer.

Developer's Wound up

The process to transfer title becomes complicated when the developer is wound up. This is because the developer's company will be taken over its control by a court's appointed liquidator. 

There are various governmental department that the appointed solicitor has to deal with. Most importantly, the individual buyer has to bear extra liquidator fees being extra costs usually in the range of 2-3% of the property purchase price.

It is recommended to perfect the title when the strata title or individual title is issued out. The delay in perfecting it would cause the buyer to incur extra costs in the future.

Discharge of Charge / Deed of Receipt and Reassignment

The process of Discharge of Charge is to get back the original title from the bank. The bank will usually sign the Discharge of Charge, and return the original title to the buyer's appointed solicitor to be presented to the land office. Usually it comes with a surplus refund form.

As for property without title, the same process to obtain back the assigned property right via the deed of assignment is done. The bank will sign a "Deed of Receipt and Reassignment" and return it back to the buyer's appointed solicitor. the solicitor has to then do a revocation of power of attorney ("PA").

CKHT Forms

The seller in a subsale has to file up a CKHT 1A & 3 form, while the buyer has to file up a CKHT 2A form.

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About the Author

Dylan Chong is the founder of Dylan Chong & Co. He specialises in taxation law and Estate Administration. He represent directors, and company to reduce the tax penalty assessed before the High Court, Court of Appeal and Special Commissioner of Income Tax. He can be contacted via [email protected]

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