Mumbai: Property transactions to become easier

Soon, property transactions will become easier as the department of registration and stamps will include more documents like allotment letters issued by the MHADA Mumbai board and mortgages in the list of papers that can be e-registered. Dr Ramaswami N, inspector general of registration and controller of stamps, told dna that they were including the allotment letters for the MHADA Mumbai board in the documents which can be registered electronically. "We have already customised the documents and incorporated them in the e-registration site," he noted. "The plan is in final stages and we have sent a template to MHADA for approval. The final testing is underway," said a senior official from the department. A MHADA official confirmed that the e-registration of the allotment letter, which is the ownership document of the flat, would begin soon.

The electronic registration — which is linked to biometric authentication through Aadhaar numbers — can be done at empanelled service providers, who are presently numbered around 50 in Mumbai and the department plans to hike their numbers to 200 by March 2016. By mid-October, around 300 leave and license documents were registered in Mumbai through e-registration. The decision to include more documents in the process will boost e-registration. These service providers will charge Rs700 for these services (of which Rs 150 will be paid to the department) and an extra Rs 300 for home visits. For e-registration, the parties to the document and their identifiers need to be Aadhaar card holders.

People with the necessary hardware like biometric fingerprint scanners and software can also complete the process from the comfort of their homes. "We are also planning to include registration of mortgage in the list of documents for e-registration. We have already allowed e-filing of the notice of mortgage," added Ramaswami. He, however, admitted that they would have to tread cautiously on including more documents in the e-registration process as many transactions like those involving sale and purchase are sensitive in nature and involve transfer of rights.

The department has already allowed e-registration of leave and license agreements, first sale of flats by developers and allotment letters by the MHADA Konkan board. The department is gradually making it mandatory for those who want to get leave and license agreements registered to go in for e-registration rather than getting this done in the sub-registrar offices (manual registration).

The move has already been initiated in Mumbai with four offices. This will reduce footfalls in these offices as these agreements form a bulk of the registration burden in the city and will help officials undertake back-end work on recovering stamp duty on around 50,000 documents in Mumbai (of a total 1.25 lakh in Maharashtra) pending for registration. However, this is not being done "openly" due to the Supreme Court's order.

Officials say that this Aadhaar-based e-registration will help people file documents at their convenience, do away with the necessity of coming to government offices and being fleeced by agents and lawyers charging hefty fees. However, this may inconvenience people who do not hold Aadhaar cards or are unaware about the facility.

Mumbai has 25 registration offices including five in the city, six at Andheri, five at Kurla and nine at Borivali. Of the around 3 lakh leave and license documents registered across Maharashtra, around 2.5 lakh were in Mumbai. Leave and license agreements, which can be registered for a period of up to five years, give protection from the provisions of the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999.