Stamp Office Logjam Frustrates Vendors, Realtors, Lawyers and Investors

KINGSTON, Jamaica – It was already a tediously slow process even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Jamaica.

Now, potential investors, realtors, lawyers and regular buyers and sellers of property, or the person merely hoping to inherit property left by a loved one who has passed, are up in arms with the Government’s Stamp Office where even an expected two-week process to get documents certified is taking up to five months or longer, Observer Online has been told.

“They were always slow and that in and of itself is a shame since the Stamp Office is such an important revenue source for the government,” said one prominent real estate attorney who wished to remain anonymous.

“Now COVID-19 has added to that,” he stated.

Another attorney said that in a recent instance, documents were held up at the Stamp Office because the person who was dealing with those documents contracted the coronavirus.

“Nobody else wanted to handle those documents so we just had to wait,” the attorney lamented.

And a Stamp Office employee confirmed to Observer Online that a pregnant employee recently died from COVID-19, demoralising staff and adding pressure to an already burdened office.