Shaz Malik, well-known as the owner of Four Sixes Taxi Company, says that he envisages a service that will help communities in the borough deal with anything from land disputes, the purchase or sale land and vehicles and inheritance to getting driving and gun licenses or opening bank accounts.
He says this should have special relevance to communities in Bolton.
Mr Malik said: “Land grabbing in Pakistan is a common place as UK nationals don’t know the rules.
“After speaking to people in the Bolton area at great length this is an all too common place.
“Generational land has either been given away out of fear or lack of knowledge.
“It’s a common place in every Pakistani household to have some sort of land or house issue.
“Not knowing the Pakistani court system doesn’t help and cases can take years to resolve, often lack of knowledge can make these cases go on for more than ten years.
He added: “One common scenario is in the unfortunate death of a parent it becomes an inheritance case to get what is rightfully yours.
“What tends to happen in these scenarios is the other family members in Pakistan transfer the asset into their own names hoping you will never return and if you do you wont have the expertise to do anything about it.
“Another typical example would be if you purchased a house overseas and your own family member has repossessed the house and won’t move out.
“It’s a common occurrence and most Pakistanis in the UK has either experienced this or knows someone close who has.”
Mr Malik hopes that his project, which will start by focusing on the Punjab region of Pakistan, will change this and was able to draw upon a wealth of personal experience.
He said: “I travelled to Pakistan alone to understand what people must go through who don’t know and understand the system.
“I had zero support from family or friends to get to Pakistan, I had only travelled once when I was younger.
“If I had any assistance from my family, it would have been easy and I wouldn’t have fully understood what I needed to do to support the people overseas and create such a service.
“This gave me a great insight on what was required and how I could bridge this gap and make it seamless.”
He added: “I was fortunate to have meetings in Pakistan with the government officials.
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“The meeting was arranged and organised in confidential about an outline sketch off what my proposed plans where to support the people overseas.
“It was a positive meeting and they understood and agreed there are problems, especially when they have investments here and don’t know how to access them.
“They agreed we would be a gateway to people overseas to have access to what is theirs and they would definitely be able to support us on this mission.”
Mr Malik hopes to get his project up and running soon and in the meantime can be contacted through his Four Sixes taxi business.
