Conveyance deed for hsg societies facilitated

The Maharashtra assembly has passed a bill in recently concluded winter session which would facilitate over a million housing societies in and around Mumbai get conveyance deed executed in their favour.

Conveyance deed is a final document which a builder has to give while transferring the ownership of land on which a housing society building exists in favour of the society.

However, in a large number of cases the builders try to avoid getting this document executed despite housing society being formed as the builders continue to enjoy the ownership rights over the land.

As ownership title is either in favour of a builder or the original owner of the land, housing societies don't get property tax bills and bills for other amenities in their name.

Many old housing societies whose buildings are not in good condition go for redevelopment of the property. They demolish their old building and then they buy additional floor space index (FSI) from market and construct new building. Which help members of housing societies to get brand new flats at no cost as cost of the construction is recovered from the sale of additional flats.

However, this becomes possible only if conveyance deed has been executed in favour of the housing societies.

Again, there is always the danger of a member of housing society getting involved in long drawn legal battle if the building collapses due to natural calamity and there is no conveyance deed in the name of the society.

In this scenario, the original owner of the land or builder can always claim that the title of the land is in their name and after the collapse of the building, members of the housing societies no longer have any legal rights over the land. Such cases have been reported from Ahmedabad after the earthquake in 2001.

Under the new law passed by the state assembly, district collectors have been given powers to execute conveyance deed in favour of the housing societies.

In the case of housing societies which are in existence for more than 10 years or so, they can approach the district collector directly and ask him to execute the conveyance deed in their favour.

After receiving a request from a housing society, the district collector would issue a notice to the original owner of the land or builder to execute conveyance deed in favour of the society within three months.