Punjab: Property owners rush for registration as govt plans tweaking policy

With the January 31 deadline approaching for registering plots and flats in individual names in cooperative housing societies at a concessional stamp duty rate of 1 per cent, property owners have been struggling to complete the process, even as the government’s policy remains under “modification”.

Official sources said the government was set to amend the policy to make registration mandatory on a prospective basis, instead of retrospectively, as announced when the policy was notified in November last year.

The revised policy is expected to be placed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday, where petitions challenging the retrospective application of stamp duty are pending.

Sources said the Cooperation Department, which framed the policy, had initially considered levying a lump-sum charge of Rs 1 lakh on all property owners seeking to avail the benefit. The proposal was later dropped after deliberations.

The policy has triggered resentment among cooperative housing societies.

Nearly 50,000 property owners in around 600 cooperative housing societies, mostly in Mohali, said societies in Punjab had enjoyed exemption from compulsory registration and stamp duty for decades. Members argue that withdrawing these exemptions retrospectively forced them to revalidate titles acquired under a tax-free regime and effectively pay stamp duty twice — once for registering the title and again at the time of sale.

Meanwhile, hundreds of owners have been lining up daily at tehsil offices to meet the deadline. As implementation instructions reached district deputy commissioners only in mid-January, many societies have submitted representations to the Chief Minister’s Office seeking an extension of the concessional period.