Hyderabad, April 23: The Department of Municipal Administration & Urban Development wants to offer 0.5 per cent of prevailing registration fee for the 10 per cent of built up space mortgaged by builders in the sub-registrar offices.
It is part of the efforts being made to break the current logjam with the Stamps and Registration Department over payment of registration fee for mortgaged portions.
Thinking is that a municipal body concerned can pay the initial fee and remaining 95 per cent of fee should be paid by the real estate developer to get the mortgaged portion released for sale.
The department is also seeking modification of the Registration Act so that local bodies are exempt from payment of registration fee like all government departments, senior officials said.
Deviations
Mortgage clause introduced along with the common building rules four years ago to arrest the trend of unauthorised constructions or deviations from the sanctioned plan has been in a suspended mode for the last few months ever since some sub-registrar offices in parts of the State refused to accept the mortgage papers without payment of registration fee.
Under mortgage clause, builders have to give an undertaking through an affidavit issued by a notary about constructing as per the sanctioned plan and mortgage 10 per cent space which is recorded in the prohibitory property watch register.
“The Registration Department feels it is losing revenue in not charging fees,” said senior officials.
Varied fees
Registration fees too are varied.
“Urban local bodies cannot afford to pay official rates hence the offer to pay of 0.5 per cent fees uniformly throughout the State,” remarked senior officials.
At the same time, they were also unsure if any builder would take the trouble to pay the rest of the fee to get the space released since few bother to take the occupancy certificate.
“The mortgaged portion cannot be sold or leased even by the municipal body concerned in case a building violation is found and occupancy certificate is denied to the builder as ownership rights are forfeited. The only option as per the existing rules is to demolish such portions and such actions have been rare,” admit senior officials.
Authorities have also been helpless whenever the builder decides to own up the mortgaged space without bothering about selling it.
-Agencies