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Plasma TV with the mortgage
Yorkshire Post - UK
Scarborough Building Society is set to become the first UK lender to offer customers a Plasma television with their mortgage. Borrowers can choose from competitive five-year fixed and tracker deals and on completion of the mortgage they will take free delivery of a state-of-the-art Sony WEGA 42'' Plasma TV complete with stand, which has a recommended retail price of £3,299.99.
Yorkshire Post

Estate agents in hot water - again
Moneyweb - South Africa
Estate agents are at it again. This time some agents stand accused of duping property sellers into giving them mandates by claiming to deliver international exposure to their properties - even when agents often have very little way of doing this.

According to Barak Geffen, executive director of Sotheby's International Realty in South Africa, too many local agents "hype up" their international links to secure mandates due to the excessive value that is placed by sellers on the foreign buyer.
Moneyweb

Land restitution does not assure economic welfare
allAfrica.com - South Africa
Land reform is a highly emotive issue in SA, and its resolution is always tied up with the painful memory of a bloodied past and ideological rifts. However, genuine grief and the need to restore dignity and sense of community are important motives for the return to lost land.

And along with these imperatives lies the prospect of a happy future once the land has been acquired. But claimants often expect too much.
allAfrica.com

Occupation is not possession
Property24 - South Africa
Many new homebuyers are confused by the difference between occupation and possession of their property - and by the provisions in a sale agreement for the payment of occupational rent. David Rogers, MD of Homenet, SA's biggest estate agency group, explains that actual possession, or the change of ownership from the seller to the buyer, only takes place on the day that the transfer is registered in the Deeds Office.
Property24

Brazoria County clerk demonstrates electronic recording of real estate documents filed via Landata Technologies e-Recording System(TM)
Yahoo Finance - United States
Brazoria County (Texas) Clerk Joyce Hudman demonstrated to local title companies how the Landata e-Recording System (LERS) works in conjunction with the county's new Landata e-STAR Plus(TM) document records system to accept electronically-filed real estate documents.
Yahoo Finance

Extension on land claims up to Mbeki
Business Day - South Africa
This year's deadline for land restitution claims could be extended only by President Thabo Mbeki and Parliament, chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya said yesterday.

The Land Claims Commission had no mandate to extend the December deadline, nor was it in favour of doing so. To prolong the process could create uncertainty among landowners and buyers, Gwanya said.

"The intention of government was to ensure that there was certainty about the land restitution process among landowners and that there is completeness of the restitution process."
Business Day