Starter Kit. Idea 457 of 500. Cluster 24
Court-record and land-registry search services for the buyer abroad
The mechanism, from the book
The one thing. A country where people do not expect the rules to hold cannot build anything else, and proof can be manufactured by private people, one published record at a time.
The first step
Offer one Sri Lankan buyer abroad, found through a community group abroad, a free search on the land they are about to buy: the title history at the land registry and any case at the local court. Write it up in plain English with copies of every document and the date of each search. The proof is a buyer who asks for a second search and pays for it.
- Who pays first
- A buyer abroad about to pay for land at home, who pays for a search because one hidden dispute could cost the whole purchase.
- What leaves today
- Money from Sri Lankans abroad stays abroad when buyers cannot check a title from there; an honest search is the proof that brings the purchase home.
Ask first
- the Divisional Secretariat. Ask how land records for a plot in this division can be searched and copied.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how to register a search service that works for buyers abroad.
Check before you spend
Confirm that you work with a lawyer or notary for anything that needs one, and that each report says plainly what was searched and what was not.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a buyer abroad pay for a full search?
- How long does one land and court search take?
- How many buyers abroad are buying land through relatives now?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lankans abroad. Chapter Eight
"No discount for home. A premium for the risk."
Not knowing costs buyers abroad money. A clear search lowers that risk, and they will pay for it.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.