Anger, complaints at Land Agents Act

Complaints about the obstacles in being granted registration under the Land Agents Restriction Act 2009 are growing from applicants that really only want to be given leave in the High Court to stand in for their parents or close relatives in land matters.
Prior to the new Act, a son, daughter or close relative could seek the leave of the High Court to stand for their parents or relatives, but under the terms of the new Act, that is no longer allowed. Unless a person is a registered landowner on that respective land or is a registered land agent, they will have no legal standing re the matter nor will they be granted leave by the Court to do so. While any landowner can represent themselves, persons in their 70s and 80s are not comfortable or confident in the court system and would prefer their children or close relatives to act on their behalf in land matters but that is not how the Court sees it.
Businessman, Mark Brown is a case in point who is applying for registration so that he can speak on behalf of the family to deal with land matters, at their specific request. He also has the power of attorney for his uncle with the view to speaking on his behalf saying many of his relatives are elderly and want him to act for them.
He has prepared a paper to be handed to the Court but could not be accepted because he was only a layman, so he gave it to his lawyer who then put their name to it and the judge commented very favourably on the submission.
Tia Bergin is another instance and said she paid her $125 application fee and was interviewed by a panel of three on the Land Agents Restriction Board: Solicitor General, Tingika Elikana, then Justice Secretary Terry Hagan and lawyer Tim Arnold.
At the interview, the panel commented that they had not seen her ‘do any work at the court house’ and so why does she want to become an agent? Tia replied it was because the law required her to be a registered agent to do work on land matters for her family. She told them of instances of incompetence in reloading data from the old court records on to the new computerized system where some lands their family owned had been omitted in the new system but for which she had hard copy of documents that said it belonged to them.
The panel asked if she would still be interested in being a registered agent if it were not for her own family? No, she said I am too busy for that and has never heard back from them. She feels that attitude is discriminatory against people with a future entitlement to the land because they are the son or daughter or even grandchild of the landowner. Tia says she should receive a refund of her fee as nothing has ever come of it.
Tia said she asked the panel to amend the law to allow for this sort of situation but nothing has been done as yet.
CI Times has rung the Secretary of Justice for comment on this particular aspect of the Act and also to comment on whether or not there is an intention to amend the Act accordingly.

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