How to Buy Property (Part 3)

Question: What things should be kept in mind while buying urban or residential property, and how can fraud in property be avoided?

Solution: Well, at present, there is one category of urban property that falls under the Local Government's revenue department. There is another category of property where, as far as revenue department records went, once completed, its authority was already transferred to the Excise and Taxation Department — its further record does not exist in the revenue department. There is a third category of property where any cooperative society or private society was established by some larger institution. After establishment, the revenue department's record stopped there once that property was taken over — once that property was taken, and all revenue department matters went to that department, that society had the authority to decide how to distribute this property and how to buy and sell it — you will get that record from the relevant society. What I am going to tell you today concerns:
1. The revenue department, which you call the 'Revenue Department'.
2. The Excise and Taxation Department.
3. Societies.

Now societies are the easiest way to buy property, if the society is formally on the list of some major authority. If it is on the list, then you can buy and sell in it with your eyes closed — you just have to go and check the society's file. If you are being very cautious, first — let's say it's Lahore. In Lahore there is LDA, and LDA approves all these societies. Land is acquired under the Land Acquisition Act; then there's the Societies Act; then there are the institutions dealing with societies, that administer them under the Cooperative Societies Act.

Now, if you are more cautious, what are the steps for you? First of all, you want to buy a plot — whether commercial or residential — that falls within some society. You will go to the relevant society's office; whoever you're buying from will give you a photocopy, they will show you that photocopy, they will pull out the file and place it before you. In this file, you will find out the name of the current owner, and you will also find out whose name it was first registered under. That too you will find out. You will also find out who that property was given to. Whenever a society is formed, and land is acquired for it, two kinds of letters are given:
1. One is an exemption letter.
2. One is an adjustment letter.

An exemption letter means: your property, according to our scheme, this property of yours that we have acquired — where we intended to do plotting — it has fallen there, so we will adjust it. Exemption — we acquired three kanals of your land; in exchange for three kanals, you will get two five-marla plots, along with all the amenities you're entitled to. Now that file will come before you, and from day one until now you will see the whole picture. For further verification, you can check with the larger department — like LDA in Lahore, GDA in Gujranwala, similarly in Rawalpindi, similarly in Faisalabad, similarly there would be such authorities in other provinces too. I can't say anything about other provinces because I am in Punjab — I can only tell you as far as Punjab is concerned. I won't mislead you there — I'll only give you the knowledge I actually have. Maybe the same laws apply there, everything the same, but I can't say anything about that, my apologies. You can verify with LDA whether this society exists on your list — if it does, very good; if it doesn't exist, definitely don't buy property in it. In Lahore there are more than a hundred societies that are not on LDA's list, and about 70% of those are currently caught up in NAB [accountability] crises — having taken people's money, they privatized everything. So that's societies — buying in societies is very easy, you just need to take these two steps. If it's on the list, okay, that's it — you don't need to take on more worry than that.

Now where is worry actually needed? Worry is needed in the revenue department — they have made the revenue department complicated; the revenue department wasn't complicated, it has been made complicated. Keep the hierarchy in mind — going from top to bottom: in the revenue department the highest forum is the Board of Revenue, which has members. Below the Board of Revenue comes the Commissioner; below the Commissioner comes the District Collector; below the District Collector comes the Assistant Collector, commonly called the Tehsildar; below the Tehsildar comes the patwari. That is the hierarchy, and these are its branches. A Board of Revenue member — the consolidation branch will be separate, mutations will be separate, partition will be separate — these are branches. Similarly, when you come down to the patwari, there is also the kanungo — it works similarly — but if you limit yourself to buying and selling, this is the hierarchy I've told you about.

Now if you want to buy some commercial or residential property that is still maintained by the revenue department, first of all, to verify the fard [extract] that will be given to you, you need to refer to the circle patwari. The circle patwari — A says, I am the owner, this was made four years ago, here is his fard — go and check it — the patwari will get it checked for you, yes sir, this is the owner in my record — you must not stop there. You need to verify whether that entry is correct or incorrect — is it possible that the land was bought from a joint account (mushtarka khata), and the person from whom it was bought, in that joint account, has already sold more than his share? For this there are two registers:
1. One is called 'part-sarkar'.
2. One is 'part-patwar'.

The part-patwar register will be with the patwari, and the part-sarkar register will be with the ADLR.
1. You need to see whether the entry about this property, about this person, matches in both registers — if both registers match, okay — but if there is an entry in part-patwar and no entry in part-sarkar, understand that there are problems. Second thing — is there a 'tatima' cut in it? A tatima means: there's a joint account of four kanals, one khasra — say there were four brothers, each owning one kanal, all four brothers each in possession of one kanal. If that joint account was legally partitioned, if it was partitioned, there will be an 'aks-e-shajra', a map of the entire mauza (village estate), in which its tatimas will be formally shown. Now, for the residential property you're buying, if the patwari says that this is running on a 'possession-to-possession' basis and its tatima hasn't been cut, that means the joint account has not been partitioned. You could face trouble at any point in the future.