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- What is a Survey?
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- Negotiator Certificates
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- Forfeiting a Lease
- Building Permit Process
- Negotiator Certificate Process
- Lease Transfer Process
- Lease Surrender Process
- Rent Review Process
- Variation Process
- What is a Lease Term?
- Subdivision Requirements
- Land Registry
- Registering a Lease
- Land Registry Fees
- Lease Terminology
- Leasing out Custom Land
- Lease Registration Checklist
- Lease Registration Process
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- Land Tribunal Operation
- Lodging a Land Claim
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Lease Compliance Audit
Home › Ministry of Lands Projects › VSTLRI › Lease Compliance Audit
What is the Lease Compliance Audit Project?
The Lease Compliance Audit Project is a project designed under the Vanuatu Short Term Land Reform Initiatives funded by AUSAID to audit existing leases in Vanuatu, with priorities being Port Vila and Luganville but slowly disseminating to the provincial level.
The purpose is to identify existing land rent, variations and other breaches on a lease and to apply proper stringent measures to deal with these breaches.
To date, as of January 2010, the Land Lease Audit Compliance Team has now collected over 200 million vts of invoicing since the project's inception.
How long has the Lease Compliance Audit project been active for?
The Lease compliance audit project has been active for 18 months now. A compliance team was set up and it is currently made up of two Compliance Officers. The team initially set up two test areas in Port Vila, Efate to pilot the Lease Compliance Audit.
1st Pilot Area - Tassiriki Area
2nd Pilot Area - Bellevue Area
What is currently happening in this project?
Currently the team has divided Port Vila into five (5) areas and does compliance audits on properties.
They do site inspections and do research on the particular property not only within the department but also with Municipality, Rates and Tax, Internal Affairs, do analysis on collected data and compile their reports based on these.
What do Compliance Audit Reports contain?
The reports outlines the breaches found on particular properties, include examples like:
- Carrying out uses for which no planning approval has been obtained.
- Nonpayment of land rent for various reasons.
- Fencing/hedges.
- Overhangs of buildings on adjacent properties.
- Overlaps on lease boundaries.
How are these non-compliance matters dealt with?
Although there are many potential breaches identified, the Compliance Audit team currently only enforces two (2) main things, with other breaches falling in the jurisdiction of other line agencies , they are:
- The collection of outstanding land rents.
- Variation to lease class.
What is the process that the team follows to deal with breach in rent and variation to lease?
- The team sends out letters to the Lessor/Lessee advising them of the breach.
- The team has meetings with the Lessor/Lessee to try and resolve the matter.
- If resolution cannot be reached in terms of outstanding rent the matter gets referred to the Valuer General.
How could you resolve your outstanding land rent?
Agree to pay in Installments - This agreement is based on the condition that you agree to pay 10% of the outstanding amount prior to any agreements of installments is made.
Pay all outstanding in cash/check up front - Either form of payment is based on your discretion in agreement with Compliance Officer.
How do you resolve your breaches in Variation to your lease?
1. You can come in and have a discussion with a Compliance Officer on your identified breach and if you are in agreement with what has been identified.
2. You can acquire a Variation Form, complete it and lodge it to the Compliance Officer to be approved. If your application for Variation is approved by Compliance Officer, your application will then be processed further by the Land Registry to make amendments to your lease. Once your variation is approved, your land value and rent may be subject to change.