Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Lost your property documents? Here's what to do

The person was on the verge of going through a property deal, when he found that the seller did not have all the property papers. The seller cited that some of the papers were misplaced by his banker. Nowadays, this is becoming a very common issue. Either just due to carelessness of holder or neglect of the banker, many documents are found missing from the banks. Misplacement of property papers is a serious matter, so do not take it lightly. If your banker has negligently misplaced your documents, try to sort the matter and take stringent action as soon as possible.

Procedure for getting duplicate papers of property when you lose them
Missing documents play a vital role especially in sale and purchase of property transactions. Selling a property with a missing paper is not an easy task. Therefore, you should be clear about the options available to you. A person doing a property transaction will have to get the duplicate documents and also shell out extra money. Here are the steps required to get the duplicate papers for your property:

1. File a police complaint immediately
Whenever you come to know about loss of certain papers either by you or bank, you need to file a police complaint as soon as possible. FIR should be made only by the owner of the house and it will be stating that the papers of property have been misplaced, lost or stolen. Take the copy of FIR; hold it safely with you as at the time of sale, buyers may ask for that as well.

2. Publish an advertisement
Once you are done with the FIR, you need to publish an advertisement in an English daily newspaper and also in any regional newspaper about the loss of property documents. Then you have to wait for next 15 days as it might be possible that somebody finds it and returns it within the limited time frame.

3. File an application for share certificate
Now, on the basis of your FIR, you can file an application for share certificate from the society. The authorized Resident Welfare Association (RWA) calls a society meeting and checks your proof (FIR) of loss. If your application gets approved, the housing society will charge a fee and in return issues you a share certificate. Also, ask for a NOC from them as it plays an important role in transacting further.

4. Register with the notary
Next step is the preparation of undertaking on stamp paper about the loss of documents of particular property along with the text of advertisement which was published in newspaper and police complaint number. Documents will be then attested and registered with the notary, so that your undertaking becomes legal.

5. Get the duplicate sale deed
The final step is to get duplicate copy of property's sale deed. For this, you have to deposit copies of police complaint, text of advertisement, share certificate and the undertaking stamped by notary to registrar office since all the records regarding property transactions will be kept in that particular office. Then, you need to pay the fees and they would issue a duplicate copy of sale deed.

These are the few steps which are required to be taken at the time of loss of property documents. Although, a good sum of money is required to go through these steps, but at the end you will get legally proved duplicate copy of your property. Bank loans are not easily granted on such property but after the verification of all the documents as well as FIR, they will provide loan once they find the documents authentic. Loans in such cases are at the sole discretion of the bank.

Do remember that if you keep the documents in bank and they are misplaced, you can claim compensation from the bank. It is a basic duty of the bank to preserve your credentials, if not, they can be penalized.