The ongoing digitisation of the Deeds Office will signific antly improve the ease of doing business in Zimbabwe's property sector by reducing processing times and eliminating much of the paperwork associated with property transactions, Chief Registrar of the Department of Deeds, Companies and Intellectual Property, Willie Mushayi, has said.
Mushayi said the new digital platform will simplify property transactions that previously required conveyancers to physically visit multiple institutions including local authorities, and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority before lodging documents with the Deeds Registry.
"An ordinary transfer with no complications could take two to three weeks. It involved a lot of leg work. With this digital platform, the conveyancer does not move. He uploads documents from his office, I receive them in my inbox and then process them," he said.
The Chief Registrar also allayed concerns that property owners who fail to Validate and Securitise their title deeds within the prescribed two-year timeframe risk losing their properties.
"We gave people 24 months and we have already gone through the first 12 months. They have the next 12 months within which action must take place," he said.
"I know some people are apprehensive and ask what happens if they do not comply in time. You do not lose your rights in property. Neither does it change hands. It remains your property.”
However, he said after the deadline, the old title deeds will no longer be legally valid for property transactions.
Mushayi described the validation exercise as a transparent process that allows property owners to work with conveyancers of their choice.
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He added that the Deeds Office has spent the past three years preparing for the programme and is establishing information centres to assist members of the public with requisite information around the programme.
“We have been preparing for the past three years for this to happen and we have most of our people properly trained and others are going through re-training just to make sure we have the necessary critical mass,” he said.
