Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Spurt in real estate business leads to shortage of stamp papers

V.S. Palaniappan

Amendment to Registration Act sought

Coimbatore: A spurt in the real estate business in the last few months has resulted in acute shortage of stamp papers in the district.

Sources in the sub-registrar offices and stamp vendors said that for the last two months, there had been a scarcity of stamp papers in the denominations of Rs. 20, Rs. 50, Rs. 100, Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000. This was partly because of the increase in registration. Even in the month of Markazhi, which was not considered that auspicious a month for transacting properties, registration offices across the district reported an average of 15 to 20 registrations a day as against the earlier trend (prior to boom) of five to six registration a day.

Owing to the skyrocketing real estate prices day by day, buyers wanted to clinch deals instantly.

Registration

Because of this trend, the registrations had gone up by close to 40 per cent, said A.S.R. Selvanarayana Samy, Sub-Registrar, Peelamedu.

Stamp vendors said that next to Chennai, the boom was in Coimbatore and Tirupur. Enquiries revealed that because of the non-availability of stamp papers in smaller denominations, people were forced to go in for higher denominations.

As per Section 41 of the Registration Act, the District Registrars are vested with powers to allow remittance of money or demand draft for the value of stamp duty to tide over stamp paper constraints.

In such cases, a major value of stamp duty is remitted either in cash or demand draft and documented in green bond sheets and only the first few sheets are typed in stamp papers.

A certificate for remittance in cash or DD is endorsed in the document. The provision allowed remittance of money or DD for higher denominations while carrying out a sale, mortgage, deposit or gift.

However, the mindset of the buyers was only in favour of stamp paper.

Stamp vendors' plea

For documents relating to partition, release, power and lease of properties there is a provision under section 41, which vested powers only with the District Registrars for allowing remittance of money or demand draft in lieu of stamp duty. Also, stamp papers of smaller denominations were essential for executing indemnity bonds, affidavits and declarations. The stamp vendors said that the powers for accepting cash remittance and demand drafts under section 41 should be vested with sub-registrars also to overcome the scarcity.

Secretary of Coimbatore Consumer Cause K. Kathirmathiyon, has asked the Inspector-General of Registration and Special Commissioner for Treasury and Accounts to step up the supply of lower denomination stamp papers by sourcing it either from the headquarters or from districts where the demand was not much.

Official sources indicated that indent had been made at the headquarters level for sourcing a few hundred crore worth of stamp papers of smaller denomination. The stocks were expected to arrive in 10 days.

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