Chandigarh allows transfer of residential properties

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 11

Hundreds of GPA holders of leasehold residential properties will now get ownership rights as the UT Administration has decided to allow the transfer of properties.

Earlier, the GPA holders were now allowed the transfer of ownership by the Estate Office in the absence of any policy or direction from the Administration for over 10 years.

Sources said Punjab Governor and UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore had recently given his nod to the transfer of such residential properties after a high-level meeting with senior officers in which the issue was deliberated upon. In a letter to the Estate Office, the Administration has clarified that the property be transferred on the basis of the conveyance deed registered on the basis of GPA/SPA, which was given when the property was on leasehold and later converted to freehold on the basis of same GPA/SPA.

Before doing so, it should be published in two newspapers to seek objections, if any, from the person who had given the GPA/SPA when the property was on leasehold. There are hundreds of cases in which people bought leasehold residential properties on the GPA in the past. Later, the Estate Office allowed them to transfer the same properties from leasehold to freehold after paying the fee fixed by the UT.

Many owners have got it registered in their names after paying the stamp duty. However, when the allottees applied for the transfer of the properties in their names, the Estate Office refused to do so on the basis of a legal opinion.

The legal wing of the Estate Office pointed out that the GPA was executed for leasehold properties and there was no provision for the transfer of freehold properties on such GPA. Due to this, a large number of property owners were left in the lurch.

JD Gupta, a property consultant, said the UThad taken a pro-people decision.