Land Scam Involving the Power of Attorney in Land Dealings in Malaysia

Noraida, Harun and Nazli, Ismail@Nawang and Jady@Zaidi, Hassim (2015) Land Scam Involving the Power of Attorney in Land Dealings in Malaysia. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 23 (S11). pp. 97-106. ISSN 0128-7702

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Abstract

The Power of Attorney (PA) is a legal instrument or document that is created by the land owner (the Donor) in favour of the recipient of the PA (the Donee) as the Donor’s attorney in land dealings. According to the statistics for 2009 – 2013 issued by the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID), Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) indicate that the misuse of PA in land transactions is the most common modus operandi used in land scam incidents. The steep increase of land scam cases using the PA is very alarming as such incidents could potentially compromise the security and legal ownership of registered lands. In relation thereof, this paper attempts to analyse land scam involving the PA and offers suggestions to overcome such problem. It is also a question whether the Power of Attorney Act 1949 do much to address the problem. The paper is largely based on socio-legal study that adopts qualitative approach. The methodology used was based on a semi-structured interviews with the Registrar, Land Administrator as well as officers at the land office. Apart from that, the library research and content analysis methods are also used. The study concludes that there are several ways that have been employed by the fraudsters in land scam incidents using the PA. It is further observed that the Power Attorney Act 1949 is also very much deficient in handling such a crime in the country.

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