Ms Carlize Knoesen was appointed on 17 March 2014 as the first female Chief Registrar of Deeds in South Africa, and thus a Deputy Director General in the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development. As the Chief Registrar of Deeds, she must give strategic input in the country’s policies and legislation relating to all land matters.
Ms Knoesen brings to this position a well–established background in deeds registration as she started her career as a junior Deeds Controller in 1985. She became a law lecturer at Justice College during which period she also wrote the South African Deeds Registration Practice Manual. Thereafter she worked in the office of the Chief Registrar of Deeds before she was appointed during 2002 as the first female Registrar of Deeds: Bloemfontein in the Free State province of South Africa. She holds a National Diploma in Deeds Registration from the University of South Africa as well as Baccalaureus Iuris and Baccalaureus Legum Degrees from the University of Pretoria.
As the Chief Registrar of Deeds, she is responsible for transformative and strategic management of the Branch: Deeds Registration, which includes overseeing service delivery and uniform application of Deeds practice and procedure in the eleven Deeds registries across the country, the Deeds ICT system, Litigation matters, Legislation, and Deeds training of officials from RSA and its neighbouring countries. She is also the chairperson of some project Boards, the Cadastral Conference and also the Sectional Titles and Deeds Registration Regulation boards. The purpose of the Regulation Boards is to annually revise the regulations to Deeds Registries Act and the Sectional Titles Act, and to recommend s amendments and new regulations thereto for the Minister’s approval.
It was challenging as a woman being appointed into the Chief Registrar of Deeds position that was vacant for some years to, at the time, change the culture in the Branch and for senior managers to start trusting and accepting her management style
The Chief Registrar of Deeds is also responsible to ensure the Deeds Trading Account is managed within the Public Finance management framework. The Branch does not receive any Government budget allocation from the fiscus. All salaries, procurement and expenses towards infrastructure and systems are paid from service delivery fees generated. Under her leadership the Branch received five consecutive clean audits for the years 2016 to 2021.
Appointed as a transformation change agent, she oversees the Deeds Registration modernisation process with the key target to roll out an Electronic Deeds Registration system (eDRS) for South Africa by 2025. The Deeds Registration aims to provide a world – class and secure land registration system and strives to provide security of title through the registration of real rights in land for all property owners. Registered title deeds can only be cancelled by order of a High Court.
It was challenging as a woman being appointed into the Chief Registrar of Deeds position that was vacant for some years to, at the time, change the culture in the Branch and for senior managers to start trusting and accepting her management style. It took many engagements, conflict management interventions and time before the change started to settle in. The government’s skills development programmes offering personal Executive Coaching and Mentorship to a senior managers appointed on this level, and the flagship Executive programme for Accounting officers (called Etella) empowered the Chief Registrar of Deeds and strengthened her management skills.
Some of the main achievements since Ms Knoesen became the Chief Registrar of Deeds are:
- In 2016 stablishing a fully-fledged deeds registry in the Limpopo province of South Africa. This was a government priority since 1994.
- The establishment of nine provinces of in South Africa in 1994, as appose to the previous four provinces, led to a government decision to prioritise the alignment of the jurisdiction areas of government institutions to the provincial boundaries of the provinces. The alignment of six provinces were completed since 2015 and the others will soon be completed.
- Although the Deeds Registration System was previously managed by managers with legal degrees, it is now managed by a fully-fledged ICT Chief Directorate.
- The Electronic Deeds Registration Systems Act 19 of 2019 was promulgated during December 2019 and section 2 thereof places a duty on the Chief Registrar to develop an electronic deeds registration system.
Carlize Knoesen
