Bintawa house owners receive land title renewal letters

KUCHING: At least five Bintawa Fishing Village house owners have received letters of approval for land title renewals from the Land and Survey Department.

Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Youth Central publicity secretary Milton Foo said as at March 30, his service team had helped to submit 55 land title renewal applications.

“The department sent the letters of approval to the respective applicants but five of those who have received their letters came back to me.

“They will have to pay the premium within 30 days from when the letter of approval was issued to them,” he told a news conference yesterday.

Foo explained that once the premium is paid, the department would prepare the Memorial Extension of Term of Title, to issue the house owners with new titles.

He said almost all the 55 applicants applied for an extension of 99 years instead of 60 years. Based on the land premium table, the renewal fee for a 60year lease is RM3,000 per semidetached unit, he said.

“Since house owners in Bintawa Fishing Village have applied for 99 years, they have to pay RM900 more, which brings the total premium to RM3,900.

“Those who have applied for the land title renewal still have 10 to 12 years left. But most of them are concerned about keeping their residences, so they want the renewal to be done,” he said, adding many residents were worried by talk that the government might take back the land for development purposes.

Foo added that his service team still had three applications in hand and were waiting for more to be submitted before sending the third batch to the department by the end of this month.

The first batch of 23 applications were submitted to the department last December, while the second batch of 32 applications were submitted separately, on March 19 (18 applications) and March 30 (14 applications), he said.

Foo said he hoped all applicants would get their approval letters within this year. He added that although the area has been under the opposition since 2006, SUPP has never ceased to help constituents there.

“We try our best to help and all we want is results, unlike some people who just point with their fingers,” he said.