Dear Members,

The Council of the Law Association became aware last week that the Property Information Management System e-services (PIMS Online) at the Registrar General’s Department has been suspended effective February 26, 2018. As you may be aware, the PIMS online is the computer database of the records of the land registry for the period 1970 to date containing entries for the following:

1. Bills of Sale

2. Charges

3. Deeds (all deeds, lease, conveyances, mortgages etc)

4. Deed Polls

5. Judgments

6. Lis Pendens; and

7. Wills

The suspension of PIMS Online has resulted in the inability of Title Clerks to access this Online database system for investigations on title with respect to common law properties and as such, the rendering of reports to Attorneys at Law. The Registrar General has made the manual records available to the public for searching, but we advised that these records are not updated and there are no current manual indices of Bills of Sale, Judgements and Lis Pendens.

We are further advised that the suspension of PIMS Online has not impacted the searching of RPA titles.

A delegation of our Committee of Corporate, Commercial and Conveyancing Attorneys-At-Law held meetings with the Registrar General (RG) and the Attorney General (AG) on this issue and is actively addressing same with the relevant authorities.

The Council, through its Committee, is expecting further correspondence from the AG and the RG to be better positioned to render a more comprehensive report to the membership on the current problem at the Land Registry and the action plans for resolution in the short and medium terms. We are therefore committed to keeping members updated on the matter and shall do so in due course.

ELENA ARAUJO
SECRETARY
Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT)