Above: Port of Spain (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Trinidad and Tobago will be receiving a $20 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank.

The loan seeks to improve the country’s handling of property registration, by cutting the number of days to register a property sale and to “enhance measures to identify property parcels and owners.”

It currently takes about 78 days to record a property sale; the project would lower that number to 65, and lower the number of days needed to conduct a property instrument search from 11 to one.

Trinidad was ranked 176th out of 185 countries on the World Bank’s 2013 Doing Business report for the ease of registering properties.

The project will also improve the country’s Registrar General’s Department, including “digitization of all property-related records, staff training in document archiving and restoration, and improvements to IT systems, business processes, and customer service,” according to the IDB.

The loan will have a 25-year amortization period with a LIBOR-based interest rate.