A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE LAND ACQUISITION ACT OF SINGAPORE AND MALAYSIA

Abstract

Compulsory acquisition is one of the harshest impositions by the State upon its citizens. The effect of compulsory acquisition is that the owner is divested of his indefeasible title to his land and his paramount right to exclusive use and enjoyment of the land. The justification for compulsory acquisition is that 'the general good of the community' should prevail over private individual interest. It is natural that the dispossessed landowner would feel resentful of the acquisition and should be entitled to a reasonable sum of compensation. An effort is made in this dissertation to examine and analyse the principles followed in assessing compensation in Malaysia and Singapore. The reason why the two countries were selected for the study was because Singapore was part of Malaysia in the earlier years. Despite this, their laws of compulsory acquisition are not totally similar. It is interesting to compare their existing acquisition laws now that they are separated. In this study, three mam issues with regards to the principles of assessing compensation would be explored. The issues are firstly, the date of determining market value of the acquired property, secondly, compensation for loss of potential value and lastly, compensation for loss of goodwill. To mitigate the hardship and suffering of affected landowners, a more equitable scheme of payment is recommended.