Agricultural lands cannot be directly used for residential purpose. They need to be converted for using them for residential purposes by paying conversion charges. The Special Deputy Commissioner is the competent authority to permit conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purpose. No building can be constructed on agricultural land without obtaining conversion and other approvals from the concerned authorities. Residential sites are to be formed only in the residentially converted land and such a land should be in the residential zone as per zonal regulations for getting approval for such conversion. Non converted land continues to be agricultural land. There are various restrictions on sale and purchase of agricultural land. As per zonal regulation of comprehensive development plan, the green belt area is meant only for agricultural activities.
In Bangalore, only the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is the competent authority to approve the layout plan and to get this approval the layout should have specified road width residential area, civic and other amenities. The Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) is the competent authority to approve sites on the outskirts of Bangalore.
It is very common that people in Bangalore buy house sites popularly known as “revenue sites” which are formed on the agricultural land without the approval of the competent authority for change of land use from agricultural to non-agricultural purposes under the relevant provisions of Karnataka Land Reforms Act, Karnataka Land Revenue Rules and regulations without knowing the hassles involved in buying such sites. Local agents aided by certain landlords misguide the buyers and market their revenue sites. It is illegal to form layouts and sell sites in the agricultural land / green belt area. Even after selling all the sites, RTC (Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crop Inspection) will be in the name of the original landowner.
Difficult to get loans
If the title deeds are not clear and do not establish marketable title, it is very difficult to obtain bank loans for construction by mortgaging these sites. Generally, these sites are situated on the city outskirts. There will be no proper roads, electricity or water supply. There is no scope for immediate development and after all this, if the prices of the sites appreciate over a period of years, the original landowner will appear from nowhere and start cultivating the area. He will remove all the boundary stones laid. The purchaser will then find it difficult to identify his property. In certain cases the GPA holder sells the same sites to several persons and collects the money from all of them. Consequently, marathon litigation awaits the purchaser. The laws are so complex that they give rise to multiple interpretations.
Middlemen ride
Middlemen and the local brokers who have mastered the art of marketing motivate the innocent people to buy the revenue sites keeping them in dark of the hassles involved in the purchase of revenue sites. These middlemen normally pay a nominal sum as a token advance to the landlord and a general power of attorney is obtained from them to deal with such properties. Thereafter, they search for the prospective purchasers. The middle men, like double edged razors, hike the price of the land depending upon the situation while, at the same time, they do not finally settle the account of the land owner. These middlemen who consider themselves as above the law form layouts on agricultural lands without land conversion and approved layout plan from the competent authority. To increase the saleable area of sites in these layouts, they will narrow down the width of the roads.
These layouts are formed without civic amenities and other infrastructural facilities. To attract the customers, these people make colourful brochures with photographs of certain parts of Bangalore and paint an attractive picture. Some of them even download the foreign photographs of houses from internet for their brochures. After the sale transaction is complete, the purchaser will have the bitter experience. In certain cases, the land owners in league with brokers will register some imaginary sites formed on the agricultural land using their clout and influence.
Ancestral Property
In the recital of a sale deed, it is customary to mention how the seller has acquired his title, interests and rights over the immovable property from origin to end. In case of revenue sites, the brokers have devised a very ingenious method to hide this fact. They merely mention in the recital that the property is “ancestral property” of the seller. In this way the property passes on from the GPA holder to the purchaser.
There are several instances where the land notified for acquisition and the land granted for schedule caste people have been converted into sites, where the purchaser of such a site would not get any title of the property. Then the law stipulates that certain lands, when granted to the schedule castes, will revert to them if purchased by others.
GPA transaction
Generally, brokers will take GPA from the landowner for the entire land. Most of the revenue sites are registered on the strength of GPA. Very few people will take care to check the legality of the GPA executed by the original vendor. Nobody bothers to find out whether the GPA is registered or not, whether the executor of the GPA is alive or not. If the executor of the GPA is not alive the GPA transaction is totally invalid. A joint GPA executed by two owners becomes invalid if one of them dies.
Form 9 and Form 10
Originally, a property falling under the Village Panchayath area alone has the genuine site status. Form No.10 is for a house coming under the Gramathana Village Panchayat area and Form No.9 is for a vacant site coming under the Gramathana village panchayat area. The middlemen and some of the revenue officials make bogus Forms No.9 and 10 and register immoveable properties in favour of innocent purchasers. Earlier, when the Urban Land Ceiling Act was in force, thousands of revenue sites were registered by merely mentioning in the sale deed the description as one square asbestos sheet house. This was so done just to avoid application of the Urban Ceiling Act. After the Urban Land Ceiling Act was abolished the term ‘one square asbestos sheet house’ was also removed from the real estate agents’ dictionary.
Agent being a GPA holder will sell the sites formed in agricultural lands to the innocent purchaser. The numbers assigned to the sites by the agent will never match with the survey numbers assigned by the government to these lands. What is purchased is an imaginary site only and the purchaser of the revenue site will not get the title of the property. If the owner is a thorough gentleman then the purchaser can enjoy the property till the government regularizes such revenue sites.
Increase of Stamp Duty
It is a trend in property sector that market rates increase when guide line value is hiked. The guide line value will then increase to be at par with market value. This is a vicious circle. Further, the government adopts two ways to increase the stamp duty and registration charges One is by increasing the guide line value and another is by increasing the stamp duty and registration charges. In one year government has increased the guide line value, next year it may increase the stamp duty and registration charges on the pretext of being long overdue. The duties in Karnataka are already higher when compared to other States. The abnormal and un-reasonable duties will only make the people to search for other routes, and government may loose much revenue.
Under Government notification dated 16.1.2007, seven CMCs and one TMC and several villages surrounding Bangalore have been brought under the jurisdiction of Bangalore Manahanagara Palike making it to be called as Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike. With this increase in the area and the population, the responsibility and the authority of the BBMP have increased manifold. But the BBMP has failed to rise to the expectation. These 2/3rd new areas of Bangalore are not regularized and the civic amenities in these areas are unheard of even though sufficient time has elapsed after their merger.
Revenue collections of the BBMP also are on the southwards since no systematic collection of revenue in these areas is commenced.
An analysis of the progress of development of infrastructure would go to show that the authorities and the political bosses have not done their homework with all zeal and zest or they have stretched their activities beyond their capacity with the only aim being to present Bangalore as an International city.
The need of the hour is to set right the mistakes committed hitherto and to streamline the supply and demand of real estate in a scientific way.
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