Minister and BPN Officials Speak Out on Root Causes of Duplicate Land Certificates

Cases of duplicate land certificates (SHM) continue to be a recurring issue causing land disputes across various regions. Duplicate SHM occurs when a single plot of land has more than one officially issued certificate. This condition often leads to prolonged legal conflicts for landowners, sometimes resulting in the eviction of residents who already possess legitimate land certificates from the land office.

Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency (ATR/BPN) Nusron Wahid noted that duplicate SHMs are typically caused by factors ranging from administrative errors to weak historical land data. Land dispute controversies involving duplicate SHMs frequently arise due to incomplete historical land records, particularly those issued between 1960 and 1987. Land certificates issued during this period lack fully accurate cadastral maps, leading to discrepancies between BPN administrative records and field data.

‘What is the boundary? What does it look like? There’s nothing. There’s only a land drawing. There’s no address,’ Nusron explained, quoted on Friday (29 May 2026). This map serves as the primary reference for issuing land certificates and provides legal certainty over land ownership. Used for land surveying, cadastral maps have a large scale, ranging from 1:100 to 1:5,000, allowing clear and precise visibility of physical land boundaries.

With inaccurate administrative data at BPN offices and field land maps, disputing parties claim ownership based on their own evidence. Land disputes become more complex when the parties claiming ownership pass away, with the conflict continuing among the heirs of both sides. ‘Why? Because there’s no proof that the land belongs to that one. There are many cases like this,’ Nusron said.

To curb duplicate SHM cases, ATR/BPN is pushing for the digitalisation of land services. Electronic systems aim to integrate land data and minimise certificate overlaps. Meanwhile, Head of the Ministry of ATR/BPN’s Bureau of Public Relations and Protocol, Shamy Ardian, stated that several factors cause a single plot of land to have two certificates or duplicate SHMs.