NHC tenants told to stop sub-leasing properties

National

SUB-leasing of National Housing Commission (NHC) properties in Lae has to be stopped, its acting provincial manager Matthew Limu says
“Some properties belonging to NHC which have been leased to tenants for a long time have been sub-leased to another person for a huge amount of rental fee,” he said.
“These people sub-leasing the properties (especially houses) to another person or group are making a lot of money from these State properties.”
Limu said there were many such cases and some have been repossessed through the court process.
He said some NHC tenants had done this for more than five years.
In some cases, NHC took the properties back on the grounds that tenants had breached terms and conditions of their agreement.
Limu said there were also instances in which the provincial Lands board granted titles of certain houses to certain people or groups without the knowledge of NHC.
He said NHC had written to the National Lands and Physical Planning Department and all those titles issued by Lands board were revoked.
“I have also taken a restraining order against the provincial Lands board to prevent them from further issuing titles of NHC properties,” Limu said.
Meanwhile, NHC  regional manager Joe Bulage said issuing of titles by the provincial Lands board to people or groups were seen as fraud.
They should only deal with land the property was on.
Bulage said such moves should be made only through collaboration among staff of the Lands board, NHC and tenants.
He said investigations into the issue were underway.