15 Jul 2021

 The Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs, Ms Annah Mokgethi, has tabled before Parliament a bill that seeks to amend Section 10 of the Married Person Property Act in order to give a  24-month moratorium to persons whose instruments have not be registered with the deeds registrar.

Presenting the proposed amendments on Wednesday, Minister Mokgethi said the bill also sought to amend the act so as to empower the registrar of marriages to issue property regime forms to those whose instruments were lost before registration at the deeds registry via submission of an affidavit.

Amendments to the act, she said, would also see the registrar of marriages able to issue people who were married out of community of property and did not have any form of proof for being married out of community of property.

Again, she said the registrar of marriages would also be  empowered to issue  property regime  forms  for marriages between a citizen and non-citizen  solemnised before  January 1971  and were presumed to be  married out of community of property.

The minister also indicated that amending the act would also provide for a penalty to those who committed perjury or given false information in their affidavits.

Supporting the bill, Francistown East legislator, Mr Buti Billy was pleased that amendments would give married couples opportunity to change their marital property status without having to approach the high courts of law.

Mr Billy argued that the process of changing the marital property status through the courts was tedious owing to the case backlogs in the judicial system.

However, he warned that the proposed amendments  might  be  abused by couples  who changed  marital property standing  to avoid having their property seized by creditors, thus  pleaded  with the  Deeds Registrar to prudently guard  against such.

Mr Billy further expressed concern about rising number of divorces cases in the country, something he said many a times denied children their property rights whenever their parents got separated.  

“The Deeds Registrar should ensure that children from the first marriages are not denied property rights in a case where one of the parents re-weds,” Mr Billy said. Ends