News

Families in Papua New Guinea can now own an apartment or unit in their own name. On 26 March 2026, the Department of Lands and Physical Planning (DLPP) issued the country’s first strata title, created, registered and issued digitally on the Digital Strata Title Platform we built with the Department.

The first title went to the Constantinou Group’s Jackson Heights development in Port Moresby. A single unit within a multi-unit building can now be owned in its own right, mortgaged and sold.

The Government launched the first strata title alongside the GoLands electronic title system. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Lands John Rosso described it as the result of a four-year effort against title fraud, one that saves banks months of checking whether a title is genuine (National Information Centre).

From law to title

Parliament passed the Strata Title Act and the Strata Title (Management) Act in 2022, creating the legal right to own an individual unit. The platform gives that right a working home: a system to create, register and issue the titles themselves. Four years after the Acts were passed, the first title has been issued.

Strata is a new kind of title, so verification was built in from the first day. A title can be checked in seconds, by a bank deciding on a mortgage, a court relying on a record or a family planning its future. Title transfers that once took around six months can, in some cases, now be completed the same day.

Part of a bigger programme

The platform is one part of DLPP’s wider modernisation of land administration through eLands and GoLands, the national land administration and revenue platform we’ve built and run with the Department since 2020.

In June, the Digital Strata Title Platform won the Innovation PNG Award for Corporate Innovation. Thank you to the Department for leading this work, and congratulations to everyone who helped make the first title possible.