Thursday, May 1, 2014

Bangalore Property Registration: The No Bribe way


I was recently involved in registering two properties (both apartments) in Bangalore. I am proud to write that both the registrations were done without paying any bribe.  All transactions were done in white. Both the registrations where of type resale - that is from an owner not via builder. The idea behind this post is to share the process of property registration in Bangalore - what all documents are required and what happens at the Sub Registrar's office.

What do you need before the day of registration - 

The Intangibles -

  • A seller who is also willing to go through the process without paying any bribe. 
  • A will that you will not give bribe come what may.
  • Patience.

Documents et al -

  1. Sale Deed - Between the seller and yourself.  It should be printed on a 2 Rupee stamp paper. There are several shops near the Sub Registrar office which will print this for you. They charge INR 10 for each print out and INR 2 for every page used.  Alternately, you can even buy the paper separately and print at home as well. 
  2. Form 1 and Affidavit : You can buy it at  XEROX shop in the BDA complex. Just ask around.  The affidavit is only in Kannada, so if you do not know Kannada, you may want to get some some help here. 
  3. Khata certificate/extract.
  4. Property tax paid receipt
  5. Previous sale deed. 
  6. DDs  favoring The Sub Registrar, , Bangalore.  Area is the place under which the Sub registrar office falls. For example, if you are doing it in IndiraNagar, Area name will be Shivajinagar.  There will be one DD for 5.6% and another one for 1% of the registration value. 
  7. Two witnesses. The witness should be present on the day of registration and you should make sure that they know that the process is a bribe-free process and hence it could take a good amount of time. (My suggestion - pick two of your good friends so that it also becomes a hangout with them) 


You will need two copies of 3,4,5.  But carry copies of everything. Carry originals as well in case they ask for it.

Some notes - 
  • Property tax can be paid online here - https://onlineservices.tin.egov-nsdl.com/etaxnew/tdsnontds.jsp In Bangalore, if the value of property is more than 50 Lakhs, it is mandatory that the tax has to be paid before you go for registration. (I have heard that in other cities, it can be paid later as well but i have not verified it) This tax is actually credited as a tax credit to the seller (You will need the seller's Pan card details for this). You should discuss this with the seller in case he is not aware of this, it is a new rule that came into action only in 2013. So, you need to pay the seller 1% less as this last 1% will come to him as a tax credit. So, if you are buying a property, say worth 1 Cr, from a seller, then you will pay him 99 Lakhs and the last one lakh will be paid to him via this tax. (Apparently the govt. wants to be in the loop.)
  • The sale deed should mention information about the above tax. Upon paying the tax, you will get an acknowledgement number which should be mentioned in the sale deed. 
  • In both the cases, i visited the Sub-registrar's office before the day of registration to ensure that the checklist is correct, in case there are some local variations. 
  • The witness should write their full names and addresses along with their signatures. I asked mine to even write their contact numbers :) 
  • You should also write the Bescom meter number in the sale deed saying that the seller has no objection in transferring so in the buyer's name. I did not had it in my clause and had to take an extra NOC from the seller.  There will be separate posts on my Khata transfer and meter transfer experience, both of them are underway. 

What happens inside the office - 

While there was some documentation on web on pre-requisites, I could not find any source that explains the process inside a sub registrar's office. My lack of process knowledge coupled with my lack of Kannada understanding made the officials little angry at one point. Normally, there are touts who understand these processes well and hence it makes the work easier for officers, for example how the documents are to be ordered.  But be polite and request them to explain. They will do it themselves, although with little frown, but a smiling thank you takes care of it in the end. 


  1. The first thing that happens is that a man takes all the documents and checks if all the necessary documents are present. He is the one who will check that the sale deed is correct, the sum of installments equals to the sum of transaction, the DDs are of the correct amount. Next, he would arrange the documents in right order and add a small post it note writing some code that i could not decipher. He will redirect you to the next table.
  2. At Koramangala BDA, i was redirected to the Sub Registrar himself who checked these docs himself. He asked me who prepared the Sale Deed. I answered that i did it myself and then he asked me write that - PREPARED BY SELF, at the last page. At Indiranagar, the guy who was checking the documents asked me to do the same. 
  3. Next comes the most important step. You are redirected to a table which has a computer. Here is where the actual registration happens. At this table, both the buyer and seller have to give their thumb print and photographs. This identity data is printed at the back of the first few pages of your sale deed. The operator will also enter details of the property into the computer which will be later uploaded to the server. Before uploading, they will give a print out which you will have to verify is correct. Be careful of spelling mistakes/omissions as the operators do it very fast and are bound to make mistakes. At both the BDA, operator was handling multiple(2-3) applicants in parallel and hence be vigilant at this step. The operator will also enter the details of witnesses but it is not required to record their photograph or thumbprint.
  4. You will have to sign this print out after you have ensured that all the information is accurate. If not, tell the mistake to operator and she will print the document again. This print out will also be signed by the operator. It has to be signed by another authority figure, most likely the operator's superior officer. The operator will redirect you to a table where the superior officer sits. Get a sign from him.
  5. After the signature from superior officer, the operator will print the thumbprint and photograph of buyers and seller at the back of the sale deed. The same operator will also keep the DDs. This sale deed with all the information is now uploaded to the central server now. This requires a scan of the sale deed which the operator will do. 
  6. The next step is stamping of the Sale Deed. All the pages of the sale deed has to be stamped. The stamping officer will also take the signature of buyer, seller next to their photographs. The witnesses also have to sign on this document. Normally, the stamping officer will verify that the signatures should match but since they always do, they are little lax about it. The witnesses have to wait till this step. Once they have signed, they are free to leave. 
  7. Next, the stamped sale deed will go to the Sub Registrar for his signature. At Koramangala BDA, i took the sale deed myself to the Sub Registrar. At Indiranagar BDA, the stamping officer took it himself for the signature. 
  8. Once the Sub Registrar signs the sale deed, it has to be uploaded again to the server, this time with all the stamps and the Sub Registrar's signature. The scanning officer in this step is different than the operator in step 5, unless the scan machine has broken down which happened at the Indiranagar BDA. 
  9. After the scanning, your registration is complete. You can collect the document by paying a small fee for the process of registration. It is around INR 500. You can pay by cash. They will give you a receipt for the same. Upon this, they will enter the registrar details in a register which you will have to sign. It mostly means that you are signing that you have received the signed sale deed. 
  10. That's it. You are done. Say Thank you to the officers, and give a treat to yourself!!

Some Notes/Observations - 
  • The process at Koramangala BDA took 2 hrs end to end. The one at Indiranagar took about 5 hrs. But we were the first ones at Koramangala (right at 10:30 am) while at Indiranagar, we went at 11:30am and most of the delay was because there were 4-5 applications before us. So, go early. Also, you can not go after 3 pm. That is step 1 should be done by 3 pm. Then only then can get the process done before 5:30 pm.  Also, at the Indiranagar office, one scanner was not working which made the process slower. 
  • It is not that they don't ask for the money. At the Koramangala BDA, the stamping officer signaled me but i told him that i will see once the registration completes.  Once all steps were done, i said thank you to him and came out. At Indiranagar BDA, the guy sitting next to the stamping officer asked for 5K. I said i am not paying it. At this point, he kept my sale deed in a drawer refusing to send it to the Sub Registrar. I waited patiently and after 5 mins, I  went to the stamping officer asking him what is the next step. He asked me to wait. After about 15-20 mins, his deputy, who had gone for lunch earlier, returned and took my sale deed to sub registrar. The guy who had asked for money was sitting with an angry look and for the most part would not look at me. I also ignored him for most of my part. 
  • Throughout the 10 step process above, once inside the office, you see openly bribe being given. Money is given in front of everyone. It is no longer an under the table step. So much so, that the operator who keys in the sale deed details on his/her computer keeps the 100 INR notes tucked under her keyboard so that they are not misplaced.
  • I did feel sorry for the operator as they work in such a bad office space working under so much pressure.  At both the offices, the ceiling fan was rotating very slowly and it was quite hot inside. The operators are always surrounded by people constantly watching each of his/her keystroke. Since almost all of them are giving money to the operator, they expect their work to be done with priority. There is no notion of privacy here. I found the operators to be nice people with exceptional crowd management skills and super work efficiency. I sincerely believe that they deserve better than what they get, atleast in terms of office space. 
  • Almost all other applicants who had come there, had come with an agent/tout. The tout was handling everything on their behalf. Once you know the process above, it is not all that difficult. 
  • It was good to see that most of the officers had their name either pinned on their shirts or places on their tables. They also had information on property tax of 1% posted on the office walls. Perhaps, if they can broadcast the list of required documents along with the actual process, it will be a big step. 
  • I was also thankful that even with all the blatant bribe giving, every table followed the first come first serve policy. So, my application was not thrown at the bottom of the stack. Perhaps, it may be because they had an expectation that i will pay later, but i do not think so. I choose to believe that most of the officials are actually good honest people who really are doing their best given the circumstances. 


If you have any questions in any of the steps above, you can mail me at arvindbatra@gmail.com.  

Beyond this, i will only say that buying home, perhaps is one of the most significant purchase of your life. For people like me, it will happen only once during my lifetime. Do spend a little time in understanding the process rather than treating it like a black box and outsourcing it.  When you are buying a home whose value goes in lakhs and crores, paying 5K or 10K is nothing to get a job done. It is clearly not a question of money. But to be able to claim that you did it without paying any bribe - thats truly priceless. 







52 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good job mate, you are a hope

Sunny Singh said...

Hats off to you and your perseverance. Truly admirable. I wish a lot of us have the courage to take the not so easy way of doing things. Will improve the system considerably. I'm planning for a registration tomorrow and plan to follow your guidance. Wish me luck!

Divya said...

Thank you so much for posting this step by step process :) .. We went to meet our builder today. They asked us to keep 30K cash ready for the registration day. I was so upset hearing that reputed builders also aren't doing anything about the bribery and they themselves are asking people to get ready for paying the bribe. I decided not to pay the bribe and started googling up and came across your blog. I'm happy to hear that this is possible and I'm going to take this route as well.

Thanks again! :)

sabari_9738772883 said...

You are the wonderful person. I am searching this kind of helpful person.I have confident that i can do my registration without bribe.Thank you .I pray the God to give you prosperous life to you and your family.

Roopa said...

Dear Mr. Arvind, a great post! Thankyou! Exactly what we are looking for. It will be of immense help if anyone registering after reading this article can share their experiences aswell. It also helps to know the order of the documents.

Roopa said...

Dear Mr. Arvind, a great post! Thankyou! Exactly what we are looking for. It will be of immense help if anyone registering after reading this article can share their experiences aswell. It also helps to know the order of the documents.

Arun said...

Your registration without bribe and especially this article is highly appreciated!! I was looking for a person like you and your article to give me enough confidence for registering my apartment without bribe. Thanks a lot once again!!

Raj said...

I was on a mission to do a Registration without Bride, Yes i am not ready to grease anyones palm.

Read your article completely.
Visited the Sub Registrar office and confirmed the documents needed for Registration.

Will complete it and update the blog.

Birendra said...

Thankyou dear, your article gave me clear insight of the so called Property registration process. Surely if people starts following as you did we can make it trend changer atleast with Sub-registrar office. I hope people there in govt positions should read this & stop asking bribe. Its someones blood money.
Thankyour once again.

Hemanth.. said...

Great Job, Mr. Aravind. You have really inspired me to go the "no Bribe way". My builder is demanding 25000 as Legal charges, which includes Bribe also I believe. I dont want to pay the bribe. I will contact you if I need further information.

Hemanth.. said...

Great Job, Mr. Aravind. You have really inspired me to go the "no Bribe way". My builder is demanding 25000 as Legal charges, which includes Bribe also I believe. I dont want to pay the bribe. I will contact you if I need further information.

Anonymous said...

Hi..nice and clear info !

I have one question , do we need to have encumbrance certificate for the resale property while registering ?

PP said...

Thanks Arvind for detailed process. You are an inspiration for all those who wants to fight corruption.

Anonymous said...

Great Job and thanks a lot. We just followed your blog and completed our plot registartion at Domlur office without paying any bribe. I am very happy to share this. Even our advocate asked us 32000 for this process.

Philip Malayil said...

Dear Arvind,

Congratulations! Thank you for sharing this...i had a one and a half year struggle to pay adjudicated stamp duty for my father's flat in Mumbai, without paying `pocket-money'.

Was dreading the registration in Bangalore. This brings much relief.


Mrs. Chhabra said...

Great job done! I am NRI and went to Bangalore just for 2 days to get my new EC as we closed our loan. The very first day I was redirected from Kormangala to Domlur and from Domlur to Church street. They make me go round and round and I realized by the end of the day, they are actually taking bribe openly to even look at your documents. Because of Day 1 struggle, I completely broke down to tears as I was alone to do this job in Bangalore and my husband was in US. I gathered myself again and decided to get this done without any bribe. I restarted next day from scratch and when all those people realized that they are not going to get anything from me, they took as much time as they could but did my job. I had to irritate them a lot by standing on their head all the time until they finished my work. Mission accomplished but I will never forget that horrifying experience of those sick bribe takers (including many women) who have sold themselves for money.

Badri said...

Extraordinary information. I appreciate the trouble you took to compile and post it in your blog. Thanks a million.

Anonymous said...

Really good information...

Thanks for sharing and Congratulations..:-)

ChandrasekharMajji said...

Thank you so much..

Unknown said...

Property tax can be paid online here - https://onlineservices.tin.egov-nsdl.com/etaxnew/tdsnontds.jsp In Bangalore, if the value of property is more than 50 Lakhs, it is mandatory that the tax has to be paid before you go for registration. (I have heard that in other cities, it can be paid later as well but i have not verified it) This tax is actually credited as a tax credit to the seller (You will need the seller's Pan card details for this). You should discuss this with the seller in case he is not aware of this, it is a new rule that came into action only in 2013. So, you need to pay the seller 1% less as this last 1% will come to him as a tax credit. So, if you are buying a property, say worth 1 Cr, from a seller, then you will pay him 99 Lakhs and the last one lakh will be paid to him via this tax. (Apparently the govt. wants to be in the loop.)

Can you please explain about this.Is this 1% dd we draw in favor of sub registrar.
Nobody is aware of this.

Roopa said...

A year later I come back to this blog to share my experience of registering our property without paying a bribe. Thankyou Mr. Arvind, your blog gave me the courage to say no to bribe and hold my head high.

Mr. Arvind documented the procedure very well. I will stick to my experience (1)registering sale agreement and (2)registering sale deed.

We bought a plot and the seller wanted 50% of the transaction at time of sale agreement. We considered this risky and decided to register the sale agreement as well. We never had any prior experience registering a property, which made me nervous. Our lawyer had sent his office assistant along with us for registration. We were very clear with our lawyer and his assistant that we have no intention of paying any bribe. This assistant helped many clients register their properties earlier and is well aware of the procedure in the registrar office.

Registration of Sale agreement:
We went to Shanthinagar registrar office and our lawyer's assistant had helped us register the sale agreement. It was time to face the official. The official asked the assistant to pay him "something" and the assistant told him to "talk to me directly". I went and sat in front of the official and after a few awkward minutes, the official finally opened his mouth. "When are you planning to do the registration"? I said, "in a months time". After another few minutes of awkwardness the official said "Give me whatever you please madam".
I replied, "I registered the property at market value and not guidance value(less than 50%). We are going to build a home and live in it and would like to build our house while sticking to our values." He goes, "Ok madam, give whatever you please". I said, "I want to stick to my principle". He said, "Ok, fine" and I walked out proud.

Registration of Sale Deed:
We took the same lawyer's assistant along for registering the sale deed also. Towards the end, I had to face the same official again. Went to him, he asked me to "give whatever I want". I told him the same thing about building a house and sticking to our values and he goes "havudu, heliduru". I firmly told him, "my intentions didn't change" and he had to let me go. We walked out with registration done and not an extra rupee paid to anyone.

These people are never used to people saying NO! I think that is why they behave the way they do. I could see him getting shameless the second time. I also think he let me go without trouble because I am a woman. What trouble could he cause anyway?

The system keeps going because most people comply, most don't even ask 'why' the extra payment needs to be made and my guess is others fear something will not be done right if they refuse to cooperate. Usually the people that assist you with the registration (your lawyer, real estate agent or whoever) are the MAIN CULPRITS since they perpetuate the system, in our case, we spoke to them repeatedly and told them this is how we want things to be done. There was lot of resistance "we need to go there again, Madam, you will go away after your work is done" Our answer "We will deal with the officials when it comes to that you stay out of the way"

So it is VERY MUCH possible to register property with NO BRIBE. Just do it!

Unknown said...

I think, this is really very well information about Pre-Leased Commercial Property For Sale. Thanks for given this information about this blog.
Lands for Sale in Bangalore

Shravan R said...

Great .. hats off to you..

Unknown said...

Dear Arvind,Very useful blog about property registration in bangalore. I need authenticed copies of a property registered in my name. Can any one plese help with the procedure ?

Prakash

Unknown said...

Mr,Batra, I appreciate your writing because it is fair and even. Most writings about Government offices assume a lot of things, write hearsay and display an ignorance of the process involved ; but you have understood and explained the process in detail and have been fair to the people involved. Thank you.

Parameshwara Bhat

VENU said...

Very informative. I got exactly for what I was searching for.

Many Thanks.
Venu

Raja Hal said...

Good information, Thank you Mr

Aravind.

Jagadish said...

Mr.Arvind Batra,Thank you so much for blogging this informative & useful,steps for bribeless way of registering property in Bangalore.

-Jagadish

Unknown said...

Great info for real estate business. Kanakia Kanjurmarg

Unknown said...

It's a very nice post regarding real estate.Thanks for this type of information. Kanakia Kanjurmarg

Unknown said...

Hi,

Thanks for share this information.... It's really helpful for my business....
flats at korattur

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience and information, it definetly help one on own to take care of work to be done.

Sudeep Babu said...

At first, kudos to you for braving the herculean task of getting the registration done without bribing the officials. Second, thanks to you for sharing your experience and for such a detailed post. I am possibly buying a property soon and this comes very handy for me to get the registration done without bribing.

Thanks! God bless you!

Rahul said...

Hi have you written post on Khata and Electricity meter transfer post as mentioned in this blog. i cant figure them

Vinay Thota said...

Kudos and great job!!!

Right attitude superb way of handling things and nice share to guide and enlighten us. Wonderfula dn please keep it up.

BTW am trying to follow the above steps where am purchasing a re-sale flat. It is helping me to the greatest possible extent.

Need ypur help and guide on Khata transfer as well- my next step in the process :)

luckyabhishek said...

Hi Arvind
Definitely an inspiration. I am tying to register a flat I purchased from my builder and the builder is asking me to bribe the tout. I am trying to resist and the kind of games they are playing to force me into paying bribe is unbelievable.
I went to the sub registrar office today to ask for he list of documents however they were not very forthcoming either. Any chance you or someone over on this blog can suggest the documents needed in case it’s a first sale On a builder constructed property ?

Abhishek

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Anonymous said...

Great post.

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Unknown said...

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Properties in South Bangalore

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ram said...

really helpful and great information about how to register and process flow without bribe.
your written sale deed one of the most interesting point.

vikram said...

Great info..
My builder asked 30k as legal charges that they need for there team..
it was during apartment price negotiation since i got the flat reasonable price agreed to pay.

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Anonymous said...

Thanks this was a great piece of info regarding the procedure. I salute the Gentleman for his patience. I will be registering my property tomorrow and i plan not to pay any bribe.

dhanush said...

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and adore learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It is extremely helpful for me.