New fees and charges put on hold

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Proposed new fees and charges for the Territorial Registrar’s Office have been put on hold for now.

The increased fees were advertised last month as required by the Administrative Procedures Act .

The public was informed that those wishing to comment on the fees in writing had to submit their comments by October 1st,

Andrew Sunia of the Attorney Genera’s Office said that the fee increase was supposed go into effect on October 22 however the hike is pending per instructions of  Attorney General Talauega Eleasalo Ale .

Territorial Registrar Taito Sam White said that they only received 2 letters concerning the  proposed fee increases . Both opposed the new charges .

Taito said no public hearing was scheduled because the number of written submissions was below 5 which is the minimum amount of comments needed for a pubic hearing.

The new charges which were proposed for services provided by the Territorial Registrar’s office were quite high.

For example, the fee for land registration and or a letter of objection to any matai title registration shall be $500. The current fee is $5.

Registration of land which is now $12 was to be increased to $100.

For a deed registration, now $5, the new fee would be  $100.

The fee for registering a land lease, or house lease would be $100.

A separation agreement would cost $100.

The fee for filing and recording any mortgage, lien or bank note or release and other documents of this nature would be $100.

The proposed  fee for performing research using office records was  $ 50 per request.

Senators had called Attorney General Talauega, the Territorial Registrar and attorney Andrew Sunia  for a hearing on the proposed increases during the last Fono session . 

Sunia said that the last time fees charged by the Territorial registrar’s Office was increased in 1987.

He said the current $5 fee for registration of a matai title denotes that little importance is placed on such a significant part of the culture.

He also said the low fee  may be the reason why people living off island file objections when a candidate chosen by a family to carry a title  registers a title.

He believed raising the fee to $500 would deter this.

Senators advised the government not to go ahead with the fee increase which they said was too high and would place a burden on families in safeguarding matai titles and land