Dream Home Ambassador helps fulfil home-ownership goals

Ramkaran Contracting Services Ltd (RCSL), via its trademark, The Dream Home Ambassador (TDHA), has held its latest "Home for Me-Success Mindset" series, partnering with various organisations to help people achieve their homeownership goals.

The conference and exhibition took place at Cara Hotels in Pointe-a-Pierre on Saturday.

Attorney Sean Inniss of the firm Johnson, Camacho and Singh gave a legal framework for home ownership, like the legal requirements for granting mortgage loans.

He told the gathering that when a load is being granted, the financial institution proposes to hold the land. Searches relating to the property must be done at the Land Registry of the Legal Affairs Ministry.

These searches are essential for several reasons: for instance, they reveal whether the purchaser or vendor has any judgments registered against him/her.

Inniss also identified the legal requirements for granting mortgage loans.

"The intended purchaser must provide a copy of the title document to initiate searches," he said."There are two types of conveyancing systems: the common-law or unregistered system and the registered system."

RCSL's founder and managing director,Patries Ramkaran, in her welcome address, said the UN designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day, since its first celebration in 1986 in Kenya.

This year's World Habitat Day theme is "Mind the Gap. Leave No One and Place Behind."

Ramkaran added that part of the theme aligns directly with TDHA's mission to educate and empower aspiring homeowners to get onto the property ladder by providing the tools to help them achieve their homeownership goals "so that no one is left behind."

She said the theme looks at the problem of growing inequality and challenges in cities and human settlements.

"Some can relate that the gaps continue to get wider for the haves and have-nots in TT. But I hope that we empower a group of citizens in this country to achieve the goal they set forth by having a success mindset," Ramkaran said.

Saturday's event marked TDHA's third year of Home for Me since it started in 2019.

She recalled that on World Habitat Day this year, the company launched the series at San Fernando East Secondary School. The organisation educated form four students on the first step of home ownership, which she said is having a success mindset.

Ramkaran said, "The youths are the future generation, and as part of our corporate social responsibility, we saw it appropriate to empower the youths as we assist in ensuring that the future will be in good hands."

She listed nine other steps to home ownership. She said people should set their goals, learn the home-buying process, save for their deposit, and get prequalified /preapproved.

They should also shop for their dream home, make an offer and negotiate, secure financing, close the sale, then move into their home.

Kerry Pariag, who works in the Town and Country Planning Division, gave an insight into the statutory approval process for home ownership.

He said a frequently asked question is whether people can check whether a property has planning permission before purchasing. Pariag said people could verify the property they intend to buy through a status-of-land submission.

The division, he said, liaises with several other organisations such as the National Trust, TT Electricity Commission, municipal corporations and the Commissioner of State Lands.

Several other people were set to be part of a panel discussion. They included the president of the TT Contractors Association, Glenn Mahabirsingh; president of the Human Resource Management Association of TT Cavelle Joseph-St Omer; president of the Association of Real Estate Agents Mark Edghill; and Morrissa Ross of TT Mortgage Finance Ltd.