Reconstructing Legal Protection for Good Faith Purchasers of Juridically Defective Land Sale and Purchase Deeds

R. Juli Moertiono; Ismail Koto

doi:10.58824/arjis.v5i2.655

Authors

R. Juli Moertiono Faculty of Law, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara, Medan
Ismail Koto Faculty of Law, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara, Medan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58824/arjis.v5i2.655

Keywords:

Good Faith Purchaser, Juridical Defect, Land Registratio, Land Sale and Purchase Deed, Legal Reconstruction

Abstract

Land sale and purchase deeds (AJB) drawn up by Land Deed Officials frequently contain juridical defects, such as forged identities, the seller's lack of title, disputed objects, or procedural irregularities, which surface only after the transfer has been registered. Under Indonesia's negative publication system with a positive tendency, such defects expose good faith purchasers to the annulment of their deeds and certificates, while the standard of good faith remains scattered across the Civil Code, Government Regulation No. 24 of 1997, and Supreme Court Circular Letters. This normative juridical study employs statute, conceptual, case, and comparative approaches, drawing on the Torrens systems of Australia and Malaysia and the English Land Registration Act 2002, and is framed by legal protection, legal certainty, corrective justice, and legal system theories. It finds three structural deficits: good faith is assessed subjectively and ex post; positive law does not differentiate the consequences of different defects; and no state compensation exists for the innocent party who loses the land. The novelty of this article is the Verified Good Faith Layered Protection Model, which integrates a digitally verified due diligence protocol generating a rebuttable presumption of good faith, a three-tier taxonomy of deed defects protecting subsequent purchasers on the logic of deferred indefeasibility, a Land Title Assurance Fund, and proportional liability of officials and the state. The model offers a normative design for reforming Indonesian land registration law in the era of electronic certificates.

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