Chandigarh, August 18: In a relief to Chandigarh residents who wanted complete ownership title to their homes and residential properties, the UT has given green signal to re-start conversion of residential leasehold properties into freehold.
A property on leasehold can be occupied for a limited period, mostly for 99 years. The real ownership remains with the UT administration.
This conversion was stopped in 2013, after the then UT administrator Shivraj Patil referred it to ministry of home affairs (MHA) for re-fixation of conversion charges.
A property on leasehold can be occupied for a limited period, mostly for 99 years. The real ownership remains with the UT administration. The person having freehold of property is its owner and can utilise it for any purpose.
Around 25,000 house owners will benefit from the decision. These include people who the Estate Office and the Chandigarh Housing Board had allotted plots and who could not get their conversion done earlier, before 2013 due to various reasons. More than 100 Co-operative Housing Societies will also benefit from this order.
The UT administration’s decision came a month after the Union ministry of urban development clarified that the power to fix conversion charges had been delegated to the administrator at the time of sanction given to original scheme in 1996.
Accordingly, the UT has taken a decision to fix collector rates to be used as land rates in the formula for calculation of conversion charges. The UT estate office is likely to notify these rates within a week.
“The administrator has approved the re-implementation of the conversion policy and directed the officials to notify the rates within a week,” MP Kirron Kher told a press conference. She claimed credit of the decision and said that she put a lot of effort in reviving the policy that was eagerly awaited by residents.
She added that once rates are notified, people can apply for conversion and get the property transferred in their name. Currently, the Chandigarh administration owns these as part of allotment rules.
As part of the policy decision, there will be no conversion fee for the plots below 50 square metre and EWS/cheap houses/industrial houses as was in the originally crafted Chandigarh Conversion of Residential Lease-hold Land Tenure into free-hold Land Tenure Rules, 1996.
A property on leasehold can be occupied for a limited period, mostly for 99 years. The real ownership remains with the UT administration.
The person having freehold of property is its owner and can utilise it for any purpose.
Once rates are notified, people can apply for conversion and get the property transferred in their name, a huge relief as people can have their home in their own name. Currently, the Chandigarh administration owns these as part of allotment rules.