Paying quit rent made easy at the Land Office
25/05/2007 The Star By Bavani M.

THE public can now pay quit rent using their credit card.

Also, the Federal Territory Land Office will attend to grouses, queries and feedback on properties within 14 days.

Ready to help: The Federal Territory Land Office will address grouses, queries and feedback on properties within 14 days.

On top of that, counter services will be upgraded, strata title application will be computerised and pro-active action will be taken to ensure that backlog is reduced.

These and more are just some of the changes that are being introduced by the Federal Territory Land Office to ensure that the public delivery system is improved.

The Federal Territory Land office, which now comes under the umbrella of the Federal Territories Ministry, hopes to introduce more changes such as to enable the public to pay their quit rent via Internet banking, post office and post on-line.


Imposing: The Federal Territory Land Office in Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin, Kuala Lumpur.
“This is in line with the Government's vision in ensuring that the public is given easier access to the government departments and that land matters are made easy for the public,'' said Federal Territories Minister Datuk Zulhasnan Rafique.

Zulhasnan, who launched the event introducing the credit card payment service at the FT Land Office on Thursday, said the move by the land office to speed up the process of dealing with customers complaints as well as introducing the meet-the-customer session is a step in the right direction.

“Based on research done by the Public Complaints bureau , 30% of complaints made by the public against government departments concerned delay in taking action and dealing with public grouses.

“So we need to upgrade our delivery system to ensure that we are more efficient and proficient in dealing with customers,'' he said.

Zulhasnan also lauded the idea of payment via credit card and said that since the service was introduced on Monday, about 300 people have used it to make their quit rent payments.

“We are looking at ways to ensure that payment can be made via Internet banking as well as enable the public to make payments at the post office.''

Zainudin: RM100mil in quit rent was collected for 2006.
Federal Territory Land Office director Zainudin Tala said RM100mil in quit rent was collected for 2006 and that arrears to be collected amounted to RM40mil.

“This is due to the fact that some are not aware they have to pay quit rent and some have not received their bills,'' he said, adding that notice would be given before action was taken against those who have not paid up.

On the matter of strata titles, Zainuddin said so far 115,036 properties have been registered with strata titles and that the figure includes 181 management corporations.

In response to developers blaming the land office for delaying the issuance of strata titles, Zulhasnan said both parties had a role to play in the matter and that all issues would be looked into before strata titles were issued.

Meanwhile, many city folks said they were happy with the idea of paying quit rent using their credit card but complained that the location of the office was not convenient for them.

“Getting a parking spot here is a big problem,'' said 47-year-old Mohd Subahan.

Fatimah Kamaruddin, 23, also welcomes the move but said customers should be given other options to pay as well.

Another customer, who only wanted to be referred to as Tan, said he had to park his vehicle at the City Hall KL library and walk to the land office to pay the quit rent.

“They should do something about the parking system,'' he said.