Bandar Seri Begawan - More information on the terms and conditions of the recently approved land strata title is needed before permanent residents and foreigners can purchase apartments, said some potential buyers.

Brunei Tourism's Marketing Director Jean Christophe Robles, who has been residing in the country for six years, said he was interested to invest and live in the country indefinitely.

"I would also be interested in retiring here, if the country had retirement home programmes. For me, it all depends on the market conditions and the terms and conditions of the strata title," he said yesterday.

Robles remarked that there was not enough information about the land strata title for him to decide whether to invest in apartments and flats.

However, he said that the land strata title would provide him the opportunity to pursue private investments. "I would like to invest so that I can rent out my units to the holiday market.

"A lot of people take vacations for three to six months, and this would be an opportunity for me," he said, adding that he had to wait to check the market conditions and obtain more information on the land strata title.

First Secretary Okouchi Hiroshi from the Japanese Embassy in Bruneisaid: "I want to clarify what the Brunei law is. If I want to buy apartments or flats to rent our, I need to find out what the conditions are before I make the decision."

However, Hiroshi said that as part of the Japanese culture, they would prefer to have land ownership. "In the case of living in Japan, value of land is higher than that of the buildings due to depreciation. Also in Japan, if a person intends to purchase a building, he would also obtain the title for the land," he said.

He added that as he had been living in the Sultanate for a long period of time, he was interested in investing as it would be cheaper to purchase apartment or flat units, rather than in Japan.

Taiga Sdn Bhd Managing Director Hiroshi Sawada said he was pleased to hear the news about His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam's approval of the land strata title.

"I am very interested to buy and invest, although I also hope to get the land titles. This would be a good private investment for me because I have been waiting for this for a while now," he said, adding that he had recently bought apartment units in Kota Kinabalu.

Aside from contributing to Brunei's economy, the Japanese citizen said that he was looking forward to leasing his units to Japanese visitors in the future, but needed more details of the law.

"Japanese people who have retired like to move in and out of Japan for a period of six months at a time and this would be a great place for them to come and reside. However, under the current immigration laws, they can only stay in Brunei for two weeks," he said.

Permanent resident Chua Teng Siong from DMD Enterprise said that he has been waiting for the approval of the land strata title for a long time. "Now I can invest in my own country (where I was born) because it would be better than investing abroad. As a businessman, I always had to look abroad to invest," he said, adding that he was excited to search for units to purchase.

He lauded the approval of the law, saying that it was difficult to take care of foreign investments. "That is why I will 100 per cent purchase units in Brunei now."

Chua also said that as the economy was picking up in Brunei, the land strata title will not only benefit businessmen, but those who have been living in Brunei for a period of time.

-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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