Legal title or interest in land requires registration to be valid; agreements executed prior to title issuance do not confer ownership rights.

[1] The learned judge of the Sandakan High Court had dismissed the appellant's claim for inter alia a declaration that the appellant is the beneficial and legal owner of 20 lots of land he had purchased from 20 individuals ("the applicants") who had successfully applied from the State Government a parcel of land measuring approximately 300 acres. It is not disputed that at the time the 20 sale and purchase agreements (SPAs) were executed between the appellant and the applicants the issue document of title had yet to be issued. Having heard submissions and considered the appeal record, by a unanimous decision we dismissed the appeal and affirmed the order of the learned Judicial Commissioner for the reasons we set out below.

The Appellant's Case

[2] According to the appellant he acquired rights and interests over the lands as he had fully paid the purchase price to the applicants when the SPAs were executed. The applicants had also signed valid and registrable Memorandum of Transfer in escrow in his favour to be registered upon issuance of the title deeds by the Central Land Office. The applicants had also signed Powers of Attorney appointing him as their attorney. All the Powers of Attorney were registered in the Magistrate's Court at Kota Kinabalu. However the appellant says that the sale and purchase transactions could not be completed because the lands were transferred to the 1st and 2nd respondents using a forged Power of Attorney purportedly signed by the applicants in favour of the 7th respondent and a purported substitution under a Power of Attorney ("SUPA") between the 7th respondent and the 1st and 2nd respondents which enabled the 1st and 2nd respondents to collect the draft title deeds and thereafter transferred the lands to their names. The 1st and 2nd respondents subsequently leased the lands to the 3rd respondent.