Housing societies will have to do a lot of paperwork, some of it allegedly unnecessary, before they get a conveyance deed along with redevelopment rights, rights to open spaces or exploit any additional construction rights. Such rights should rest with societies but developers are rarely willing to surrender these.

The Maharashtra Ownership Flats (Amendment) Rules, 2009, approved by the government, promise to make it possible for societies to get a conveyance deed within six months of making an application. The rules are aimed at benefiting over 60,000 housing societies in Mumbai and several more across the state.

What will make it difficult is the clause that societies “wherever possible” have to produce copies of 21 documents, including the registered sale agreement, property card, plot layout, non-agricultural order and urban land ceiling act certificate.

This will help them get a deemed conveyance order. After that, they have to approach the stamp duty office to pay stamp duty, the registration office to register the document and the land records department to transfer the property in their name.

“The problem is that at each of these stages they are asked to unnecessarily submit all 21 documents and many more. This means that even after deemed conveyance is issued, officials in each department will have arbitrary powers to hold the society to ransom,” said Ramesh Prabhu, chairman of the Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association. He conceded, however, that the rules will provide relief to scores of flat-owners.

Another bottleneck is that the government has not yet allotted manpower to the three competent authorities in Mumbai (one each for South Mumbai, eastern and western suburbs) to handle the overwhelming number of applications that are expected to be filed. The rules will come into effect in another two months.

... contd.