No Witnesses Required for Property Registration, if you have Aadhaar

Last Updated : Jan. 22, 2018, 5:27 p.m.

From February 2018 onwards, the registration of the property can be done through Aadhaar verification. The initiative has been taken in order to get hold of the illegal transactions occurring in the real estate. Maharashtra would be the first state in the country to start Aadhaar verification for property registration and soon other states would follow the path.

An amendment was made to Section 32A of the Registration Act, 1908, to introduce the new system of Aadhaar verification for property purchases. With more than 90% of the Indian adults having Aadhaar cards, the process of property registration would be simpler as compared to the times when at least two witnesses were mandatory. Just like the online Aadhaar verification was on for leave and licence registration, the same would be done for new property registrations. The change in the process would be cost-effective, faster and fully auditable which also hints that those who do not have an Aadhaar number yet might not be able to buy a property. Thus, having this unique 12-digit number is no more a choice but a need.

The latest move comes after a series of measures adopted to curb the use of black money and benami transactions in the real estate industry. Other than demonetization declining the real estate transactions, the government also executed the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amended Act, 2016 which empowers authorities to provisionally attach and grab benami properties.