Technology platform to boost property transactions

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has started a project to computerise 3,300,000 Housing Development Board (HDB) documents and 800,000 HDB titles, a project that could help property buyers to easily search and look for their ideal HDB apartments.

The Singapore Titles Automated Registration System (STARS21) is expected to be a great help to property agents, general public, and lawyers, said Bryan Chew, senior deputy registrar of titles and SLA director of Regulatory Division.

Mr. Chew said to BizIT that the $8.2 million project will provide convenience and save time.

SLA is a statutory board that manages land sales, allocation, acquisition, leases, as well as other land-related undertakings in Singapore. Currently, though it still keeps a large collection of HDB documents and titles as physical accounts, it already runs a computerised land registration system particularly for private assets. Approximately 80% of its registry accounts are made up of 3,300,000 HDB documents and HDB titles.

Through STARS21, SLA can create an integrated and computerised platform, encompassing both HDB and private properties. This platform is expected to boost tasks related to properties transaction, such as properties registration and lodgement, and title search.

Currently, searching for HDB property details usually takes 10–15 minutes, with SLA staffs retrieving, duplicating, and posting or faxing hardcopy documents or leases to the consumer.

In the future, search results are anticipated to be automatically and immediately sent over the net. Though the speed and ease of searching for title will not shorten the processing of a transaction, they could help property buyers in their searching task. “Before placing a deposit, buyers can always go online and search that the owners are who they profess to be,” Mr Chew stated.

The project was revealed earlier in August by the Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering). The platform is being developed around Hewlett- Packard software and equipment, and uses the technology concept of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).