Pretam Singh said the Attorney-General’s Chamber did not file an appeal within 30 days of the High Court ruling.

He said the lands and mines department issued new titles for those who had their old titles with them. “We paid a small processing fee before the new titles were issued,” he told FMT.

The old titles of a few other houses were held by banks as the owners were servicing their loans, he said. The banks were being asked to surrender the old titles for new ones to be issued.

The right to freehold titles was granted by the High Court on March 11 when judge Evrol Mariette Peters held that the 99-year leasehold condition imposed on the land was invalid and ultra vires the constitution.

She said the owners could not be denied the constitutional right to property.

The home owners said the 1903 master title belonged to a rubber plantation owned by Edinburgh Rubber Estates. The land was transferred in 1973 to Sharikat Permodalan Kebangsan Bhd for a housing project developed by Syarikat Maluri Sdn Bhd.

However, the status of the land was changed to leasehold.

Pretam said the residents had attempted to resolve the problem administratively, including writing to the prime minister’s department, but had not been successful.