registration
The Registration Act, 1908 lists documents that must be registered (s.17), including non-testamentary instruments creating or transferring an interest of Rs. 100 or more in immovable property, leases from year to year or for more than a year, and (after the 2001 amendments) agreements of sale for part-performance purposes. Section 18 lists documents whose registration is optional. A document must be presented within four months of execution (s.23).
Under s.49, an unregistered compulsorily registrable document does not affect the property and is not evidence of the transaction, though it may be used to prove a collateral purpose or in a suit for specific performance. Registration gives notice to the world and protects against later transferees. Registration is separate from stamp duty: a document can be duly stamped yet unregistered. In Suraj Lamp the Supreme Court held that a sale agreement, GPA and will do not transfer title; only a registered sale deed does.
Example
The gift deed of the house was never registered, so under s.49 it could not be used to prove the gift.
In Indian law
- Sections 17, 18, 23 and 49, Registration Act, 1908
- Section 54, Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (sale of immovable property worth Rs. 100 or more only by registered instrument)
- Suraj Lamp & Industries v. State of Haryana, 2011 INSC 739: SA/GPA/will transactions do not convey title
See also
stamp duty · conveyance · deed · transfer of property
Read more in the study notes
- Classification of administrative action (Administrative Law)
- Promissory estoppel, legitimate expectation and proportionality (Administrative Law)
- Control of the RBI over non-banking companies, financial and non-financial (Banking Law)
- The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation Act, 1961 (Banking Law)
- Lending by banks: principles, priority sector, securities, interest and penalty (Banking Law)
- Initiation of a criminal case: FIR, Zero FIR, preliminary enquiry, investigation and complaint (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)