E-registration of Leave License Deeds – A big relief

By I C Naik

The pre-registration of Leave License Agreements to occupy a sub-let flat of any housing society in Mumbai is must on various counts: Legal, Security of residents, assurance of getting back possession of vacant flat.

A large number of real estate brokers are thriving on this procedural hassle a licensee wants to avoid every 11 months for housing society Bye Laws permit LL A of 11 months at a time. Every eleven months the Licensee has to shell out ` 2-3K to the brokers. This is coming to a happy end with a bonus of familiarity with on line transactions processing.

Leave and licence agreements in cities like Mumbai, which have prohibitively high real estate prices, account for around 35% of volumes in terms of documents registered, but the share of revenue collected is less considering the low stamp duty value compared to sale and purchase deeds.

As per authorities engaged in making this happen they have already managed to register around 100 documents so far on a “test basis”. Soon there will not arise a need for people to stand in serpentine queues at registration offices to register their leave and licence agreements. The department of registration and stamps will ramp up access to the e-registration facility through the statewide network of citizens service centres (CSCs).

“Pilot testing is underway, we will enable universal access soon,” Dr Shrikar Pardeshi, Inspector General of Registration and Controller of Stamps, reportedly told the press a few days ago.

The CSCs stand for around 6,000 functional Maha e-Seva centres, 350 Setu centres in district collector and tehsil offices and about 25,000 Sangram centres in gram panchayat offices.

About 6-8 weeks from now As a large number of individuals may not have access to web cameras and biometric devices (thumbprint scanners) which are needed for the online registration their scheme is to make e-registration facility accessible through these contact points.

The online module allows people to automatically calculate their stamp duty and registration charges, prepare, modify and view the draft agreement before it is executed and submitted for registration.

The stamp duty and registration fee could be paid online through Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS). The department will then register the document and send it back to the parties electronically. The Licesor and licensees can store scanned copies of agreements an added facility and convenience.