Documentation

Buying a property, is not only buying a dream home but also your investment for life. But it doesn’t take much for it to turn into a nightmare.

I have always wanted to buy a property, which will be ready and easy to move in. Who would want to wait for at least two years before the builder got his dream home ready. In the meanwhile he would have to continue paying rent on his current flat and Pre Emi’s. Plus there was always the chance of the developer over-promising and then not delivering. Typically, every new project has a swimming pool and a clubhouse built into the design at the launch stage, and gradually such things disappear when the time to deliver nears. An old flat does not have any of these risks. “What you see is what you get”.

However, just before the day of registration was getting close, I was having sleepless nights a week before I was supposed to register the property in my name while purchasing an apartment in Metro City. How would I know if the property was at all in the name of the person to whom I was going to hand over the money. Once this doubt had set in, there were thousands of other whys, where’s and how’s.

This is the most important aspect to be considered before buying a house. If you are buying a house on a leasehold land or land owned by government, you need to obtain a no- objection certificate from the authorities. To get such a certificate, you may have to pay prescribed fees, which will further inflate the consideration for the property.

The other most important thing is the entire history of agreements pertaining to that property. “The entire chain of agreements should be made available to the buyer. Always insist on the ‘chain of documents’ all the agreements effecting ‘buying and selling of property’ till date since it was constructed.