Borok — a malajo-hollandisme (Malay-Dutch hybrid word) derived from the Dutch borg (surety), with the verb memperborok — was the current name in Atjeh for the indigenous mortgage, known in older Atjehnese terminology as beunda in Sigli and boengkaj in Groot-Atjeh.
Names and survival of the old terms
D. W. N. de Boer recorded that the Inlandsche hypotheek (indigenous mortgage) was known in Atjeh as well, and was encountered in judicial practice both in Sigli and in Groot-Atjeh, though almost no longer under the old proper Atjehnese names — beunda in Sigli, boengkaj in Groot-Atjeh — being designated instead by the malajo-hollandisme borok, or, in Groot-Atjeh and specifically in the VI moekims Peukan Bada, by the Malayised Atjehnese memperboengkajkan.
Nature of the contract
The Atjehnese mortgage contract served to bind a piece of ground for a debt without that ground being transferred, the mortgaged property serving only as security for the debt. In this it differed from the gala, under which possession passed to the pledgee.
Uses
A mortgage contract was usually entered into by the money-lender only for loans on short term, mostly as advances for commercial purposes — for example to cattle dealers for the purchase and resale of livestock, to rice dealers, to the keudeh-holder (keeper of a warong or toko) and to others requiring trade credit — but also for the purchase of remunerative coconut, pepper or pinang gardens.
Interest
So long as the principal borrowed was not repaid, interest was paid on it, either in kind or in money, according to what had been stipulated beforehand. Interest in kind usually consisted of a portion of the commodity traded (rice) or of the yield — coconuts, pepper, pinang — of the mortgaged property.
Forfeiture
Land encumbered with a mortgage fell to the money-lender in its entirety — either after expiry of the term fixed in the contract or by agreement, or on non-payment of the stipulated interest — just as with the indigenous pledge; and thus not merely, in the language of the Burgerlijk Wetboek, “om daaruit het hem competeerende te verhalen,” to recover out of it what was due to him.
See Also
Source
Het recht op den grond in Atjeh, by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.