BBMP's khata move falls flat

BBMP's khata move falls flat

Property registration dips, owners blame new guidelines

Srikanth Hunasavadi. Bangalore

The city has seen a drastic dip in property registration this time. And no, it's not because of recession. The dip is being attributed to the revenue department's new guidelines on property deals, which were issued to check irregularities.
The department made Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike's (BBMP) khata a must for all property registrations to bring some uniformity in the process. It was done to prevent registration of illegal properties without valid documents. This, revenue department officials say, was necessary to check the haphazard growth in the city.
But the plan, it seems, has backfired. The stringent rule has caused a huge dip in the process. It has even put builders and property developers on the back foot.
Under the new BBMP, around 600 sq kms of area has been added to the city which includes 7 city municipal corporations (CMCs), 1 town municipal corporation (TMC) and 110 villages.
Property owners in these areas bank on documents issued by the CMC, TMC or Grama Panchayat concerned.
But registration of properties under the new guidelines requires six documents. These include the khata and tax determination receipt issued by BBMP or corporation, an affidavit, a sanction plan or conversion certificate (if the property is on converted land), title deed or allotment order or possession certificate or sales document (if property is given by government department or agencies), permanent account number (PAN) issued by the Income Tax department or Form 60 and 61 if the property values more than 5 lakh and a declaration in Form 1 under the Karnataka Stamps Rules 1977 (Prevention of Undervaluation of property).
The guidelines make the BBMP khata mandatory, failing which registration of such properties would not be done.
"In the city, more than 90 per cent of builders have no BBMP khata. When there is no khata, how can we register? So we stopped the registration of properties to apply for a khata certificate from BBMP. This will take a minimum of two months," says a legal advisor to leading builders in the city.
"Because of this, property registrations have drastically dropped," says a sub-registrar. "Registrations have come down to 40 per cent. Earlier, we registered 25 to 30 properties per day, now it has reduced to 10 to 12 a day," an official at the Koramangala sub-registrar office told DNA.