Registration of property documents

Although registration of all documents is not essential, some documents are compulsorily registrable. These include document acts as notice to the general public.

The Indian Registration Act 1902 and Transfer of Property Act 1882 contain relevant provisions regarding which documents are compulsorily registrableall and which are exempted. Under section 17 of Indian Registration Act 1902, there are a few documents, which require registration compulsorily.

These include:

• A document of gift of immovable property. Any gift deed irrespective of the value of the gifted property needs registration.
• All non-testamentary documents which create interest, right, or title in immovable property.
• All non-testamentary documents which cancel any right or interest in title of immovable property.
• All non-testamentary documents, which declared, assign, limit or restrict interest or title rights in immovable property.
• All non-testamentary documents which acknowledge receipt or payment of any consideration on account of transactions pertaining to right, title, or interest immovable property.
• All non-testamentary documents transferring or assigning any decree, order, or award of court, which affect the interest, rights and title in an immovable property.

The documents may create, extinguish, assign, declare, limit or restrict the intrest or rights title in immovable property for the present or for future. In case the value of the immovable property is Rs 100 or more, they need to be registered.

Under section 107 of Transfer of property Act 1882, the lease of immovable property from year to year for a term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent, must be done only by registration. The term year to year refers to a continuous lease from year to year i.e. where the landlord has no option to terminate the lease at the end of the year without notice. The term, ‘reserving yearly rents’ means, the lease has no definite period, but the annual rent is determined. The word ‘yearly’ means that the lease should run year after year, or at least more than a year. As such, any lease in excess of a year should be registered.

Under the Indian Registration Act, the State Government can exempt the registration of any document of lease the period of which dose not exceeds 5 years and annual rent dose not exceed Rs 50.

According to the provisions of Section 54 of Transfer of Property Act 1882, any sale of immovable property of value of Rs 100 or more needs to be registered. In addition, all types of mortgages need to be registered. The only exception is mortgages created by depositing of title deeds or equitable mortgage.

As per the provisions of Section 49 of the Indian Registration Act, in case any document that is compulsorily registrable is not registered, the non-registered documents do not convey or transfer legally valid title to the transferee. Moreover such documents are not admitted as evidence of any transaction affecting the property referred to in the document. However, such unregistered documents may be received as evidence in a suit for specific performance under the Specific Relief Act, as evidence of part performance of a contract as per section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act 1882, and as evidence in any other related transaction not required to be effected by a registered instrument.

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