Soon, draft property papers without middleman

28/1/2018

PUNE: The state Inspector General Registration and Controller of Stamps (IGR) will soon introduce a link on its website to help citizens draft property registration document while sitting at their homes, eliminating the role of middlemen.

Once a person clicks on the link (make my registration), it will open a separate portal where all kinds of registrations can be accessed, an IGR official said, adding that people will require Aadhaar to make use of the facility.

The officials said Maharashtra is the first state in the country to introduce such a facility. "The objective here is to eliminate the role of the middlemen. It will allow citizens to prepare their own sale deed document through specific formats uploaded on the portal. The documents can be submitted online to the registration department, provided the individual has Aadhaar card. They can later be submitted to the respective sub-registrar office," they added.

"We are still working on the concept and expect to make the facility available to the citizens soon," IT head of IGR Supriya Karmarkar said. Karmarkar with her colleague, Santosh Hingane, came up with idea on which the service is based. With the department keen on minimum intervention from middlemen, mainly advocates or brokers, the portal will help save money and time of people as well as ensure that there are fewer crowds at the registration office.

The portal is presently being readied in consultation with advocates as the set of documents that will be put up on the portal will be of various types. "The developer or the seller can select any option, can pay stamp duty through online system and even forward the readied document to the sub-divisional office. The printed document of the final registration will have to be submitted later at the registration office. This will help in ease of doing business, save time of citizens as well as weed out middlemen," Karmarkar said.

Presently, citizens take help of advocates to draft their sale deed document or even lease agreement. This way they are completely dependent on the advocate or other persons and end up spending huge amounts. "Once the facility is made available to general public, the prevailing procedure will change. For developers, it will be easy to register the documents of the buyers and for those who want to sell a re-sale property, the seller will be able to do so from the confines of his/her home," the official added.

Explaining the process, officials from the IGR department said the citizens cannot only draft the document, but can also raise their query in case of doubt to the department. "Once the forms are filled, an edit option will enable the citizens to make changes. It will also enable people to pay the stamp duty and registration charge as per the amount entered," she said.

"It will help in bringing down visits to the registration office and also keep a check on corrupt practices at sub-registrar offices," IGR officials said. Citizens, who have paid up to Rs 25,000 for readying their property documents, said it will be a big respite as long as it is user-friendly. "If the IGR introduces the option soon, people like me will benefit the most. This will usher in transparency," Samar Naidu, who recently approached a lawyer for a deed, said.